


Dresden Hollows

by Water_Nix



Category: Glee
Genre: AU, Blaine Big Bang Challenge, F/F, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Haunting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 19:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Water_Nix/pseuds/Water_Nix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine wants to get away from the city, so when friends ask him to accompany them to a haunted house in Upstate New York to film a documentary over spring break, he's more than happy to oblige. He's hoping for many chances to relax and take in the gorgeous surroundings between helping Artie with his film and participating in Brittany's seances. Instead, he has to deal with power outages, washed out roads, no cell service, and the possibility that all of these events have been set up by the staff. The one bright spot is a very intriguing fellow guest named Kurt, who believes every story about the estate and its infamous otherwordly inhabitants. As Blaine gets closer to Kurt, he finds himself becoming a stalwart believer right along side him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for this summer's Blaine Big Bang over at beyond_dapper. Many thanks to my lovely betas Keri & Doris for all of their help. And to tortugax for the gorgeous art and mix.

****

**One.**

 

The trees are still naked, skeletal by the sides of the winding country road as Blaine drives the borrowed SUV further and further upstate. The temperature has been mild over the past week, but there are still random piles of dirty, half-melted snow here and there in the ditches and fields and amongst the trees.

 

Blaine slows to a crawl, heeding the signs as he navigates the car around a particularly treacherous bend in the road, Brittany flopping to one side in the backseat behind him. “That's what those handles are for,” she says, and Artie heaves a sigh from the passenger seat and crosses his arms over his chest.

 

Blaine is tempted to remind him that it was his idea, after all, this trip, that he had reiterated over and over at increasing levels of enthusiasm and desperation that he needed to come up here to film his documentary project, and that he needed Blaine's help. He couldn't be left at the mercy of Brittany and her frighteningly absentminded driving, or to her nonsensical conversation, and please would Blaine save him from all of that. And Blaine had eventually caved, though he'd secretly wanted to from the start. The need to avoid the city and his brother's pestering him to visit was at the forefront of his mind.

 

To be fair, Artie had gotten the idea for his documentary from Brittany herself, though he had jumped on board almost immediately. This confused Blaine initially. Artie seems exasperated by Brittany most of the time, and ghosts and hauntings are a little out there for someone like Artie who has a very scientific way of going about things. He'd lost his confusion when Artie had taken him aside and explained that he intended to debunk the ghost story with his project, not give it any weight. Blaine is pretty sure that Artie did not share this intel with Brittany, who has been gifting them with stories of her ghostly adventures and fantastic Ouija board skills since they left the city hours before.

 

Brittany is an odd girl who lives in Artie's building and is a student at the New York Academy of Dance. Artie told Blaine that he had once dated her, but she doesn't seem to remember having done so, so Blaine isn't quite sure what to think. He's not quite sure what to think of Brittany in general most of the time, especially when she begins telling him for the dozenth time that she is a powerful psychic medium who is sensitive to the spirit world and has the ability to call them forth from the abyss. Whatever that means.

 

“Artie, you're gonna be so glad you've got me with you. Maybe you'll be the first ever director to catch a real, live ghost on film. You'll be like Ghost Busters only cuter and more like a robot.”

 

Blaine has to hold back a smile when he catches Artie's eye roll in his peripheral vision. “I can't believe I had sex with her,” Artie says. He's quiet, but not quiet enough that Brittany doesn't overhear.

 

“We had sex?” she asks. Blaine can make out her furrowed brow in the rear view mirror. “Was it on the astral plane?”

 

Artie half turns to glance over his shoulder to where she is leaning forward over the console. “No, pretty sure it was on this one,” he says, all seriousness, and Blaine has to bite his lip this time to keep from breaking into laughter.

 

They stop for gas on the outskirts of a small town. As Blaine fills up the tank, he watches Brittany lift Artie from the passenger seat and into his chair with amazing ease and wheel him into the store. They are an odd pair to be sure, but as Blaine had settled into his life in New York, they had quickly become his favourites.

 

He met Artie at Tisch, where he was recruiting acting students to appear in a short film he was working on for one of his classes at the film school he attended in Brooklyn. They had hit it off immediately and become fast friends, Blaine starring in the last three of Artie's projects, that ranged from science fiction to comedy to some sort of art film that Blaine still doesn't really get. But he doesn't mind. It's good experience for him and he likes working with Artie. He'd ended up moving in with him at the end of his first year, and subsequently met Brittany.

 

Just as he's sliding the nozzle back into the slot on the side of the gas pump, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

 

_Cooper_  is written across the screen of his phone when he pulls it out and Blaine is tempted to ignore the call. He's tempted, but common courtesy appeals to his better nature and he slides his finger across the screen with a sigh and holds the phone to his ear.

 

“Hey, Coop,” he says. It comes out sounding tired, but at least not as annoyed as he actually feels.

 

“Blainey! How's my baby brother?”

 

“I'm fine. A bit tired, but fine.”

 

“Good, good,” Cooper says, sounding far off and muffled and like he paid little attention to Blaine's answer. “So, you never got back to me about those spring break plans, Squirt. You were supposed to let me know if you could come out here to sunny LA and visit. I want to show you everything. I promise you'll never want to leave, and I found you the perfect agent, Blainey. A great guy—”

 

“Cooper, I told you I'm not moving in with you. I'm finishing school and staying in New York.”

 

“Blaine, school is—”

 

“A waste of time. I know that's what you think, Coop, but I'm actually enjoying it and finding it very useful. And I'm not interested in doing what you do. The stage—”

 

Cooper interrupts with a rude noise and Blaine clenches his jaw. “Theatre is dead, Blaine. How many times have I told you that? I know you love to sing, but maybe you could work that into a film role here and there. Or even a commercial franchise the way I have. Come on, I've found you an agent, Blainey.”

 

Blaine leans against the warmth of the SUV and shuts his eyes. Cooper has been insufferable over the past year, trying to finagle Blaine into moving out to LA with him, promises of film roles and TV pilots and untold men on his lips. He'd even called when drunk in the middle of the night to sing  _It's Raining Men_  into the phone until Blaine had gotten fed up and hung up on him. He'd gone to visit Cooper the summer before moving to New York for college, and he is well aware of the truth: Cooper likes to live beyond his means and he needs help paying the bills. Help with the bills and a free assistant, which Blaine had all but become during that summer visit.

 

“I can't anyway, Coop,” he says finally. “I'm spending my break helping a film school friend make a documentary in Upstate New York. I'm there now, actually. We've just stopped to fuel up and take another look at our map.”

 

“Oh.” Cooper's voice has dimmed with the news. “Well, a documentary is good. Are you lending your voice to tell the tale? We could practise together. You could use help sounding solemn, you know.”

 

“No, no. Nothing like that. I'm basically just driving him up here and helping with equipment and things. No voice overs required. I figured it would give me a chance to relax and maybe take some photographs. I haven't done that in so long, and Mom and Dad got me an amazing camera for Christmas last year.”

 

Cooper sighs into the phone and Blaine feels guilty, though he knows he shouldn't. Any predicament that Cooper has got himself into is far from his fault, and though he loves his brother, he needs to figure things out on his own. It's not Blaine's job to be his keeper.

 

“Okay, Blainey. Well, maybe we'll see each other this summer then.”

 

“Of course, Coop. I'd love to see you, you know that. California, it's just not feasible for me right now. I'm busy, and I'd only wind up being more tired when I got back than I was before I left. We'd have way too much fun.”

 

Cooper sounds bright again when he responds. “We would indeed, little brother. The Andersons take on LA? The town would never recover!”

 

A small smile curves up Blaine's lips just as Artie wheels himself over, a tray of drinks balanced on his lap.

 

“I've got to go, Coop. My friends are finished inside and it's time to get a move on. I'll talk to you soon, okay?”

 

“Sure thing, Blainey. Love ya.”

 

“I love you, too, Coop. Bye.”

 

He feels more content as he ends the call and slips his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. He hates fighting with his brother, and things have been tense lately.

 

“Hey, Artie,” Blaine greets. “Ready to get back on the road?”

 

“Actually, Brittany started talking to the people inside and apparently we missed the entrance a couple of miles back. But no worries, because these people have stories, Blaine. They sound like a bunch of loons, but I gotta get this stuff on film. Help me with my camera?”

 

And so they end up in the field next to the store, Artie behind the camera, interviewing a man who owns the place.

 

“No one from town wants to deliver out there anymore,” the man is saying. “My cousin, Paul, he went out there to work on the electricity last summer, and he won't even speak of the place. They should have left that house to rot after the last of the Dresdens died. No good can come of it. You kids shouldn't go up there. The tourists come and go, hoping for a good story to tell their buddies at home, but they only see things they never want to repeat. I'm telling you.”

 

“What sorts of things do they see, sir?” Artie asks, all politeness, but it's plain to see that he doesn't believe the man.

 

“Blood and screams and that poor girl what was killed up there all those years ago. Now Jack Dresden, he got off on the murder charge — the maid, she said he'd been running up the stairs and not down after she went over the roof. But the maid, she worked for the Dresdens, didn't she? That's no proof, I say. The people in town said the same. And after it was all said and done, Jack Dresden went nutty, wound up in the booby hatch, didn't he? They said it wasn't murder, but something funny happened there that night, and that house hasn't been silent since. Not even when it was left vacant for damn near thirty years.”

 

Back in the car, Artie turns to Blaine with an evil grin spread across his face. “Dis gon be good,” he says, rubbing his hands together.

 

“What's a booby hatch?” Brittany asks, snapping on her seat belt. “And are we gonna solve the mystery?”

 

Blaine meets her eye in the rear view mirror and smiles, shrugging, then turns the key in the ignition. Artie starts talking about fake traps and light projections and voice recordings to scare the tourists and how he's going to uncover it all, and Blaine suddenly feels as though he's wandered into an episode of  _Scooby Doo_. And he figures, since he's driving, that must make him Fred. Artie is obviously Velma, and Brittany... she gets to be both Shaggy and Scooby, he supposes. Now, if only he had a Daphne...

 

Clearly he is exhausted from the long drive and needs a good night's rest.

 

 

It isn't any wonder they missed the sign to Dresden Hollows when they passed by the first time. It is small and nondescript, the font difficult to make out. It's a long, bumpy way in from the main road, over a tall hill and down into a valley that Blaine thinks will be very beautiful once the trees have all budded and the flowers bloomed. For now it is tarnished by the winter, brown and sleeping, the only specks of colour that of the sky and the numerous evergreens. Even the water of the small, private lake seems drained of its blue.

 

They come upon the house slowly. The estate is immense, sprawling across acres, the house itself large and stone and foreboding. There are tennis courts and stables and low, brick buildings that once must have housed animals but are now crumbling into disrepair. The house, however, looks strong and well kept. Blaine remembers reading on the website that it had more than twenty suites of rooms, as well as a ballroom, an enormous dining room the size of a New York City restaurant, and an indoor pool.

 

There are a dozen people on staff, some of whom live right on site, others who travel in from the nearby town. The place is exclusive — only welcoming ten guests at a time, and boasting a long waiting list. Blaine wonders again how Brittany managed to procure them three spots in that esteemed ten, and on such unbelievably short notice. Sometimes he thinks that maybe she is as magical as she claims to be.

 

He pulls up in front and turns off the engine. They are greeted by a large guy about their age, sporting a leather jacket and a mohawk. “Noah Puckerman,” the guys says. “You can call me Puck. I'll get your stuff and take it to your rooms for ya. And I'll get your truck into the garage before it starts to rain.”

 

Blaine looks up at the clear, blue sky before giving Puck a quizzical look. He shrugs his shoulder and holds his hand out for the keys. “Always happens, guy,” he says. “Always.”

 

Blaine hands them over and helps Brittany get Artie's chair out of the back, and they're soon on their way inside.

 

Blaine looks up at the impressive façade of the main house. It's staggering in size up close— all grey stone and mortar that looks as though it's been arranged by hand. There are black, wrought iron lattices around the numerous windows and lining the widow's walk on the roof of the house. The double front doors are made of some heavy, dark wood and there is an old fashioned bell hanging to the right of them. Blaine looks at the bell and is about to ask Artie if he thinks they should ring it, when Brittany gets an excited look on her face and pushes through them and opens the doors.

 

The foyer is beautiful, with marble floors and dark wood and grand chandeliers. There must be several stained glass windows near the entrance that Blaine did not take notice of, for they are casting multicoloured shapes all over the walls and floor and wide, curving staircase.

 

A tiny woman with short, grey hair approaches them with a broad smile. “Hello,” she greets. “My name is Jan. Welcome to Dresden Hollows.”

 

They chat with Jan as she checks them in, finding the reservation under Brittany's name in her computer. “Just a word of warning,” she says, watching Artie playing with his cell phone. “Cell service is pretty spotty out here— you have to hike up to the top of the hill to get a clear signal at the best of times. At the worst of them, well, the weather often puts it out completely. We get storms in this valley the likes of which the surrounding towns never see.”

 

“Due to the ghosts you mean?” Artie asks. She eyes him with a slight smile on her lips.

 

“Ah, a sceptic. We see many of you at check-in, my dear. Unfortunately, when you leave you tend not to be quite so sceptical anymore.”

 

“Well I will be more than happy to be convinced,” Artie replies, and Jan laughs wholeheartedly.

 

She gets the room keys from below her desk and hands one to each of them. They are long and old fashioned like skeleton keys. Blaine finds that his feels heavy in his hand, and he quite likes the weight of it. He slips it into his pocket for safekeeping.

 

“I've put all of you young people— your group as well as another threesome from the city— all in the west wing of the manor. The older folks I'll be setting up in the east side, and the few staff members who stay on here at the manor are in the back, in the old servants' quarters. That's myself and my wife, Liz, and my two nephews— one of whom you will have just met outside upon your arrival. Then there are the Roses, the mother and daughter chef duo who run our kitchens. They are very good. I snatched them up when the one and only French restaurant in town closed this past Fall. And of course there's Emma.”

 

Jan motions to her right where a petite woman with large eyes and soft, waving auburn hair now stands. “Emma will show you to your rooms. Please feel free to ring for me or any of the other staff should you need anything at all. We dress for dinner, which will be served promptly at 7:30 in the dining room.”

 

When they reach the third floor and slide across the metal door of the rickety old elevator, Blaine spots a heavy, wide door with interesting scroll work around the frame. “Where does that lead?” he asks Emma, and she begins shaking her head, he huge eyes growing to impossible size.

 

“Just to the attic,” she says, still shaking her head. “You don't want to go up there. It's the only part of the house that hasn't been renovated. Dirty messes and dust and spiders.” She visibly shudders and Blaine is about to leave it be, but then he remembers an interesting bit of architecture he'd noticed on the house.

 

“Is that how you access the widow's walk on the roof?” he asks.

 

She nods her head. “Though I doubt it's safe these days.”

 

“It's strange, isn't it? A widow's walk on a house that isn't on the coast? I've never heard of it before.”

 

“Oh, I don't know about that,” Emma says. She gives him a look almost like a warning, then turns aside to show Brittany her room. Blaine stares at the door to the attic, determined that he will ask Jan about it later. He could get some very good shots of the entire valley from the top of the roof.

 

Blaine's room is cool and spacious. There are several long, narrow windows that reach nearly all the way from ceiling to floor and are hung with dark mustard drapes that match the walls, which are painted a light custard yellow. The furniture is all heavy, dark wood and of an old fashioned make, including a huge four-poster bed that looks soft and inviting. Blaine wants to leap onto it like a child and bury himself in the mountain of throw pillows and sleep until morning, only dinner is being served in a little over an hour and Blaine would never think of being so impolite. Besides, he thinks as his stomach gives a low grumble, it's been hours since he's had something substantial to eat and eating on the go never makes him feel satisfyingly full. So instead of burrowing into the lovely, crisp bed, he locates his bags, which have been placed helpfully in one corner, and sets off into the ensuite bathroom with his toiletries to freshen up.

 

He's tempted to give himself a fresh shave before dinner, but exhaustion wins out and he places his shaving kit on the marble counter of the vanity for the next morning, before stripping out of his wrinkled clothes and stepping into the shower.

 

Brittany and Artie are already in the dining room when Blaine arrives, though it doesn't seem as though he is the last, as there are four empty seats along the vast, elegant table. Jan sits at one end, but the other end seat remains vacant. To Jan's immediate right sits Artie, and Brittany next to him. Blaine nods and smiles at Jan before sliding into the seat between Brittany and an old woman with a deeply lined face and what appears to be a tiny dog in a bag on her lap.

 

“Constance,” she says to him. He's not sure if she's introducing herself or the dog, but he gives his name and a smile nonetheless.

 

Artie is making conversation with Jan and a small brunette who sits to Jan's left, but Blaine can't spare them more than a meagre glance once he sees who is sitting directly across from him.

 

He looks like an actor or a model, his face a fine, delicately chiseled structure of sharp edges and soft curves. His hair is artfully swooped upward, a thick mass of light brown shot through with a wide array of colours, darker browns and reds and golds. He has an interesting nose, slightly wide at the base, and almond shaped, twinkling eyes that are a strange bluish grey colour, or maybe even green. “I'm Kurt Hummel,” Blaine hears him say in a soft voice before his full, pink lips curve upwards in a hint of a smile.

 

“Um... Blaine. Anderson,” Blaine stutters out, and Brittany giggles at him from his side.

 

“I know, right? He's pretty like a mermaid,” she leans in to whisper, and Blaine feels his face heat up as Kurt Hummel quirks an eyebrow, obviously having overheard.

 

“That's all of us for tonight then,” Jan says, interrupting before Blaine can become any more embarrassed in front of this gorgeous guy. “My wife, Liz, is still in town, and our final two guests, the Forresters, are not arriving until tomorrow. We're such a small group that I always find it nice if we go around and introduce ourselves on our first night. And yes, before you ask, before I retired into the haunted hotel business, I was, in fact, a school teacher.”

 

Everyone chuckles and Jan lifts her glass and toasts the group. Blaine fumbles for his wine, nearly upsetting it on the table, and takes a drink with a shaky hand. He can feel eyes on him, and he's pretty sure they're not those of the infamous Dresden Hollows ghosts. He's not quite certain which he would prefer at the moment, since he can't seem to control his own limbs or string together a coherent sentence. He takes a deep, calming breath and looks with polite interest at the brunette to Jan's left, who is beginning the introductions.

 

“I'm Rachel Berry,” she says. “I'm here from New York City, originally from Ohio, and I'm in my junior year at the New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts, where I study musical theatre. My future plans include someday winning a Tony, an Emmy and an Oscar, and maybe even marketing my own fragrance.”

 

She stops and gives everyone a wide, toothy show smile, and Blaine feels almost as though he ought to applaud. Jan thanks her and the girl next to her sits up straighter in her chair with a blasé look on her face.

 

“Santana Lopez,” she says. “I came up here with my two roommates because they're obsessed with the ghost of some dead Broadway chick. As if our day to day life doesn't decimate the charts with its insane levels of supreme gay, we're spending spring break ghost hunting for some song and dance broad from the damn stone ages instead of gettin' our tan on somewhere tropical and with lots of bikini-clad ladies I can ogle. As you can see, I'm not incredibly impressed. The only possible bright spot is watching them get so worked up by their ridiculous imaginations that they piss themselves in fright and shriek like preteen girls during a  _Saw_  movie marathon. Especially you, Lady Hummel,” she adds, turning to Kurt. “I like it when you shriek. The Oompa Loompa's shrieks I can live without.” She pokes her thumb at Rachel, who rolls her eyes.

 

“Well I do hope we can change your mind, Santana,” Jan says with an amused smile.

 

Kurt is so busy glaring down at his roommate that he forgets it's his turn for a second. When he realizes his mistake, his face washes with a lovely pale pink and he flutters his hands adorably. Blaine can't stop from smiling at him, which Kurt notices and returns before speaking.

 

“Hello, my name is Kurt Hummel,” he greets the table with a little wave. “I also study musical theatre at NYADA with Rachel, and I work part-time at vogue.com. I do admit to being the slightest bit obsessed with the stories of Evelyn Parker, a Broadway actress who died in this house, and that maybe Rachel and I have been on the waiting list to stay here since freshman year.” He grins over at Rachel, who reaches behind Santana's back to grasp his shoulder. Santana rolls her eyes and downs the last of her wine.

 

The lady next to Blaine skips over the young guy beside Kurt altogether, and introduces him as well as herself. “I'm Constance. That's my grandson, Toby, and he looks after me because he wants my money when I die—”

 

“ _Gram_ ,” Toby interrupts, eyes wide.

 

She waves him away and holds up the bag in her lap. “This here is Woofer. He's my pride and joy. If I could leave all my money to Woofer, I sure as hell would.” And she takes a piece of her dinner roll and feeds it to the tiny dog, who lets out a growl of thanks.

 

The table is silent for a long moment, and when it seems that Constance is indeed finished speaking, Blaine clears his throat next to her, wondering how exactly he's going to follow  _that_.

 

“I'm Blaine Anderson. I go to Tisch. I came here with my friends for some peace and quiet and to take some photographs of this gorgeous estate.”

 

Jan nods kindly at him. “Do you study photography at school, Blaine?”

 

“Oh, no, it's only a hobby of mine. My grandfather left me his collection of antique cameras when he passed away, and I caught the bug. I'm actually studying drama and music, much like Kurt and Rachel there.”

 

He catches Kurt's eye and they share another smile just as two people come in through the swinging door from the kitchen and begin serving the soup.

 

“I'm Brittany,” Blaine hears from next to him, though he continues to watch Kurt. “I'm a medium. And not, like, my dress size, even though that's a medium, too. I mean, like, a psychic medium. I'm very sensitive to the other side and I can tell that this house has at least one spirit, which may or may not be malevolent.”

 

Kurt's eyebrows shoot up higher and higher as Brittany makes her little speech, until they are resting practically in his hair. Blaine takes a spoonful of soup to avoid the laughter that wants to bubble up out of his throat.

 

“Artie Abrams, student of film from NYC. I'm here making a documentary about hauntings, and I would super appreciate any help, interviews, information any of you could give me.”

 

“Of course, Artie,” Jan says, her eyes alight. “I would love to. Let me know whenever you'd like, and I am more than willing to be interviewed.”

 

“Oh yes,” Rachel agrees. “As long as I'm given full credit for my work, I will sign whatever actors' releases you have for me.”

 

“ _Actors' releases_ ,” Santana repeats with a scoff. “As you can already see, Cripps McGee, you're gonna get a real and true account from Miss Babs Streisand wannabe over here.”

 

“Get thee back, Satan,” Kurt hisses at her and she laughs, leaning over to pinch his cheek. “You'll have to forgive her,” Kurt says. “She was raised in a barn. A very fancy barn with skylights and a pool, but a barn nonetheless.”

 

“Oh, Prancey, stop trying to be funny,” Santana says with a grin, and reaches across to steal Kurt's glass of wine.

 

Blaine catches Kurt's eye and winks and is pleased to find that Kurt's face goes pink again.

 

After the second course, Blaine is feeling pleasantly full and reaches for his yet untouched glass of water. Unlike the others at the table, his is wet with condensation, but when he encloses his fingers around it, he finds that it is not cold to the touch as he had been expecting. In fact, the water inside is tepid when he takes a drink. He places it back down on the table, watching as his finger marks lengthen and drip down the side of the glass. There is no reason for it to be sweating, and yet it is.

 

He stares at the glass for several moments, and when he looks up, Kurt is watching him. “Mine isn't cold,” he says.

 

“Neither is mine,” Blaine replies, and Kurt reaches across to rest his fingers against Blaine's glass. He pulls back with a puzzled hum and their finger marks sweat and mingle together.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Two.**

 

When Blaine wakes up it is still dark and he is shivering violently. He hadn't kicked off the blankets during his sleep, and yet he is freezing. The air in the room is frigid and he can see his breath like he's outside on a January morning. He tries to ignore it, pulling the covers up to his chin and attempting to get back to sleep, but it is not to be had. After fighting the cold and becoming more and more alert by the minute, Blaine heaves a frustrated sigh and kicks off the covers. The floor is not cold on his bare feet, however, and he sighs again, this time in pleasure, as it warms his toes. He grabs a set of clothes and heads into the bathroom for a nice, hot shower.

 

After he gets out, happily thawed and feeling very awake, he sets to work on getting his razor and shaving cream and everything out of his kit. He massages in the preshave lotion, his other hand fumbling through his bag in search of his folded up straight razor. But he can't find it anywhere. He remembers packing it— knows for a  _fact_  that he did— and yet, it isn't there. Frustrated, he rinses off his face and studies the stubble there. In another couple of days he'll be sporting a beard, and just when he met a guy he'd like to make a good impression on, too. With brow furrowed, he steels himself to re-enter his cold room.

 

But it's no longer cold. It's pleasantly warm and the curtains are open, the early morning sun shining through the dew on the windows.

 

##

 

There are still low patches of fog drifting across the fields as Blaine wanders between the crumbling out buildings and the workers' sheds, his camera heavy around his neck.

 

The clouds are beginning to roll in, large and grey and puffy, and Blaine wonders if the rain predicted the day before by the guy with the mohawk is indeed coming, regardless of the weather report issued by trained meteorologists which had promised sunny skies and above seasonal temperatures.

 

He dodges around a few dips in the ground, left behind by previous rain storms, holding his camera to his eye to get a shot of a noisy raven high on the peak of an old barn. It caws at him three times in increasing volume before flying off, so he lowers his camera and wanders inside the barn.

 

It smells musty and damp, piles of cast-off boards rotting under the glassless windows. Blaine photographs the windows, the rolling hills beyond visible through the empty frames, then turns towards the ladder leading to the barn's loft.

 

He sees something out of the corner of his eye, a movement, quick and fleeting and his heart picks up speed, though his rational mind knows that it's likely just another bird. They are probably nesting inside the building, with no door or windows to keep them out. He swallows his discomfort and takes another step forward, his eyes registering something strange before his brain completely puzzles out what it is. There is colour. The rest of the place is drab and beige and brown, but this is a bright, vibrant red. It's on the other side of the barn, something on the wall, and even with his heart nearly in his throat, Blaine continues his approach, though the colour and the splash of it brings only terrible things to mind.

 

It's paint, he realizes with a sense of relief that embarrasses him, as he draws close enough to see it properly. A single word sprayed and dripping down the wall:  **BeDLaM**.

 

He lifts his camera, thinking he'd like to show it to Artie if nothing else, but just as he's about to press the shutter, he hears footsteps behind him and jumps, dropping the heavy metal camera body. It knocks painfully against his chest and pulls the strap around his neck, digging in and chafing the tender skin beneath it.

 

“Dude, relax.” It's the mohawk guy, Puck. Blaine takes a gulp of air. He quickly finds himself warming in embarrassment.

 

“Sorry. I thought I was the only person up at this hour,” he explains. He motions to the graffiti on the wall. “Probably some kids did that, huh?”

 

Puck gives him a crooked, condescending sort of smile. “You keep telling yourself that, dude. Whatever helps you get to sleep while you're here.” He pauses for a second, half turned as though about to leave, then thinks better of it and turns back. “You should get a picture of it while you can, though. 'Cause it wasn't there twenty minutes ago when I was last in here, and it'll probably be gone if you decide you're gonna come back searching for it later with your buddies.”

 

He does turn completely this time, looking over his shoulder to warn Blaine that the rain is going to start falling soon, then he's gone back out into the fresh air of the morning.

 

Blaine hurriedly takes two quick snaps of the wall before following after him. The air outside the mouldy barn is heaven to his lungs.

 

Behind the vast house there is a beautifully tended garden, its hedges high and green. There are vines winding and climbing up the delicate trellis at the entryway, some small, whitish grapes still suspended between the leaves. At the centre of the garden is a wide fountain, water spraying from a statue of a woman and all of the small creatures that are nestled around her feet. She smiles benevolently down upon them with her grey, pupil-less eyes. Blaine has always hated the eyes of statues since, as a child, Cooper had convinced him they were real people dipped in cement and their eyes were the only parts of them that could still work. Ever since he's always felt as though he was being watched while in their presence.

 

He comes in close despite his misgivings, studying the serene tilt of her lips, the moss growing on her shoulder. He plays with the dials and settings of his camera, for the clouds have gotten thicker and there is less light than there had been even five minutes before.

 

“It's her.” Blaine startles again and turns. It's Kurt. He looks soft this morning, less angular than he had the night before at dinner in his crisp suit. He is infinitely huggable in his lumpy blue knit sweater and jeans, and instead of feeling more on edge, Blaine finds a sort of calm descend over him. He feels safer with Kurt there in this strange, eerie place. Even under the watchful eyes of the marble woman and her legion of forest creatures.

 

Kurt smiles up at the statue. “It's Evelyn Parker. I'd read that after her horrible death, Jack Dresden had a statue of her commissioned by a French sculptor. It's breathtaking, isn't it?”

 

“Yes,” Blaine agrees, still watching Kurt and not looking at the statue as he probably ought to be. Kurt notices where Blaine's attention lies after a moment and turns that perfect shade of pink. Blaine smiles at him and shrugs, sheepish, before finally looking back up at Evelyn Parker. Well, her likeness at least, carved in marble to forever hold court in this garden. “Do you know much about her? Evelyn Parker? About this place?”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Kurt says. “Probably more than is healthy,” he adds a moment later with a trilling laugh. “She was a huge up and comer on Broadway in the '20s. And Broadway was booming then, but she was a stand out. She made one film before she died in 1928, a silent picture called  _Delicate Glass_. It never got much attention, but my friend Rachel and I found a copy of it online. She was very lovely.” He nods towards the statue. “It's a striking resemblance. The sculptor was very good.”

 

“I'm afraid I'd never heard of her before, not until my friend Brittany told us she'd found a haunted house for Artie's film. And even after, my knowledge goes no farther than what was written on the Dresden Hollows website.”

 

Kurt's eyes go wide and he smiles in an excited way that is more than a little adorable. “Well I can certainly fill you in,” he says. “I am a marvellous raconteur when the mood strikes me.”

 

Blaine grins. “I'm sure you are.”

 

Kurt walks to the side of the fountain to join him, and he and Blaine begin to stroll around the garden, Blaine's camera all but forgotten as he listens to the lilt of Kurt's very lovely and unique voice. They pause in front of a sprawling rose bush, still brown and sparse from the winter, though the rose hips stand out, a dark pink amongst the drabness of the sleeping foliage. Kurt runs his long fingers over the curve of one of a particularly deep fuchsia and watches his thumb sweep away the curl of a dead and dried leaf.

 

“So, you're a Tisch man?” Kurt asks.

 

“Yes. I started at NYU initially, but I really wanted to study acting, so I applied after my freshman year and was luckily accepted.”

 

“I'm sure luck had nothing to do with it.” Kurt gives him a flirty look, one eyebrow raised and a smile lifting the left corner of his mouth.

 

Blaine smiles back and shrugs one shoulder, his fingers reaching out near Kurt's to find a neighbouring rose hip. “Well, I may have had an in with one of the teachers on the board.”

 

Kurt laughs. “Not what I meant, silly,” he says. “Tisch is a great school and they don't let just anyone in. You must be really good.”

 

“And you,” Blaine tells him. “NYADA? Don't they only take, like, twenty musical theatre students a year?”

 

“Twenty-five,” Kurt corrects him with a little wink and Blaine laughs again.

 

He forgets himself, watching the smile on Kurt's face, the twinkle in his eye, and he's soon sucking in a breath and crying out in pain, a sharp sting on the tip of his finger and shooting up his wrist. He pulls his hand up to find a perfectly round drop of crimson blood stark against the pale tip of his index finger.

 

Kurt reaches for his hand, making a low, cooing sound. “Oh, there are still thorns, honey,” he says. Blaine wants to grin and laugh at the unconscious endearment, but Kurt seems as though he's just realized what he said and looks like he wants to slink away and never come near Blaine again, which is definitely the opposite of what Blaine wants.

 

“I kind of call everyone that,” Kurt says after an awkward few moments of silence. “Everyone I like anyway.”

 

Blaine tilts his head to catch Kurt's avoiding eye. “Well I've never been more pleased to be liked,” he says, and Kurt shakes his head fondly.

 

“We should get you a Band-aid,” he says.

 

Blaine touches the tip of his thumb to the prick and presses, stopping the drip of blood and smearing both fingertips with red. “Nah,” he reassures. “It'll be fine.”

 

Kurt releases his hand then. “If you're sure. At least you didn't drop to the ground and go into a deep sleep,” he says with a smile. “Then I would have had to carry you back into the castle before it starts to rain.”

 

“I'm sure you could have found some old, clichéd way of waking me up.”

 

“I'm sure,” Kurt agrees, smirking, and then a huge, fat drop of rain falls onto his nose and he crosses his eyes to look at it.

 

“Guess that rain is starting now,” Blaine says with a giggle, and the sky opens up at his words, sheets of rain drenching them in seconds.

 

“Shit!” Kurt shrieks, and then Blaine grabs for his hand and they run, laughing, towards the house.

 

The nearest door is one neither of them have used before, but it is luckily not locked when Blaine turns the knob and pushes, and they tumble inside.

 

They right themselves and Kurt gasps, Blaine turning quickly, thinking Kurt had seen something strange. “Your camera!” he exclaims instead. “Is it ruined?”

 

Blaine reaches down to lift it. It has some water beaded on the body and lens filter, but seems fine otherwise. He's just about to tell Kurt so when he rucks up his sweater, pulls his t-shirt from his jeans and begins using the soft fabric to dry the camera. Blaine swallows, catching sight of Kurt's taut stomach above the waistband of his jeans, his bellybutton dipping in enticingly. And Blaine does not think, not for one solitary second, about how much he would love to run his tongue over and around and inside. Nope. Not even a little bit.

 

“I hope it's all right,” Kurt says with a worried little hum, and lets his shirt and sweater fall back to cover the strip of skin. Blaine tears his eyes away and nods his thanks.

 

Kurt grins and slides his arm around to link with Blaine's. “Shall we explore on our way to dry clothes?”

 

“We shall,” Blaine answers, and they start off down a narrow hall with low ceilings, quite unlike the rest of the house.

 

“This is definitely the servants' quarters,” Kurt says as they hurry down the hall. The last thing they want is to disturb the staff in their living area. It feels so rude.

 

As they round a corner, Blaine can swear he sees another flash like he had in the barn— something rushing away, moving in the corner of his vision. He must hesitate or give some sense that he's seen something, because Kurt squeezes his hand around Blaine's wrist and bites his lip. “I saw it, too,” he says, then pulls Blaine along more quickly down the dark, oppressive hallway and out through a heavy door.

 

The end up next to a smaller staircase that they assume will lead them to their rooms, but they pass it by and continue on to the front of the house. To the left of the staircase, there is a library with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the walls of the garden they had just vacated, and they hover in the doorway, Blaine taking a few photos of the tapestries and tall shelves of books before retreating. The floor is covered with a large, expensive looking area rug which they decide they would rather avoid dripping on.

 

They soon find the ballroom. It's to the right of the main staircase, and Blaine is shocked that he didn't notice it upon initially entering the house. The doorway is high and open, and inside the room is cavernous. There are more floor to ceiling windows taking up the better part of the walls, with small, stained glass shapes in between them— diamonds and flowers and crosses. The room is full of light despite the gloom outside the windows and the sheets of rain that are still falling from the heavens. The many chandeliers are all lit, a cascade of glittering light illuminating the assorted furniture and polished, marble floor.

 

Blaine shares a glance with Kurt and they both grin before rushing inside to investigate. They sink onto an ornate iron bench near the solid wood bar. Through the windows they have a perfect view of the hills and the storm, the trees thrashing in the wind and the rain. A bolt of lightning lights up the sky, and not a second after it has disappeared there is a loud crack of thunder from overhead.

 

They sit and chat there for so long that their clothes dry. The alarm goes on Blaine's watch and he sighs. He doesn't want to stop talking to Kurt, but it's almost time for him to help Artie work on his film.

 

“I have to go help my friend soon,” he says. “But before that, would you accompany me to the dining room for breakfast?” It's not much of a date, but it's all he can really do at the moment. Kurt seems very pleased with the meagre offer anyway; he gives Blaine a radiant smile.

 

“I would be honoured,” he says, and they link arms again as they walk towards the dining room to the sound of the booming thunder.

 

# # #

 

“On record we have Rachel Barbra Berry, of Bushwick, New York. She would like me to state that she is an avid Broadway enthusiast and has studied the history of the golden era, as well as the sad story of Evelyn Parker, who died at, and is notoriously haunting, the estate of Dresden Hollows, where this filmmaker and his crew are currently staying to gather evidence on the existence of ghosts. Or perhaps only the tricks one needs to pull off the appearance of just that.”

 

“Oh, there are ghosts.” Rachel interrupts Artie's monologue and Blaine is secretly relieved. Artie tends to be long-winded and Blaine wants to get back to Kurt before he has to dress for dinner. “I mean, Evelyn Parker has been seen and heard by hundreds of people over the years. They've even witnessed the phantom projections of the famous jazz-era parties that the Dresdens threw here while she was visiting the estate in the summer of 1928.”

 

“And what do you know of the relationship Miss Parker had to the Dresden family?”

 

“Well that's the juiciest part, isn't it? Evelyn was the secret lover of Jack Dresden, the youngest in the family and only son. The Dresdens were old fashioned and well, sexist if you ask me, because he was the sole heir to their fortune, being the only male in the family. That's why he and Evelyn had to keep it a secret. She was butcher's daughter from Pittsburgh, and Jack's family would never have accepted her as their son's bride. She was only invited that summer because she was friends with a rich debutante from Manhattan, who the Dresdens were hoping to set Jack up with. Little did they know, but their fantasy daughter-in-law was in on the whole thing, and introduced Jack to Evelyn months beforehand in New York after one of Evelyn's shows.”

 

“And how do people have access to this information, if it was all a secret?” Artie asks.

 

“It all came out later during the trial,” Rachel informs him, smiling into the camera. “Jack was charged with Evelyn's murder. The trial was a sensation— in all of the papers. But of course he didn't do it.” She shakes her head and reaches up to wipe away a tear that Blaine is sure isn't actually there. “He loved her so. It was just like Romeo and Juliet.”

 

“How can you be so sure?” Artie asks. “Maybe he snapped? Lots of people do.”

 

“No.” Rachel shakes her head adamantly. “He was running up the stairs to save her after the household staff heard her scream. They were cleaning up after the party while the rest of the house was sleeping, so they were the only witnesses. And to say they weren't reliable witnesses just because they were servants? That's just classism.” She sniffs daintily and fingers at the ruffle on her dress. “Anyway, the real proof for me is Jack himself. He lost his mind with grief afterwards, the poor man. Some people say he never spoke another word in his life, only to open his mouth and utter  _Evelyn_  on his death bed almost fifteen years later.”

 

Blaine hears Artie sigh audibly when Rachel works up a single tear and lets it trail dramatically down her cheek.

 

# # #

 

Blaine doesn't see Kurt again until dinner that evening, and is delighted when Kurt slides into the seat next to him. He is dressed in an absolutely stunning pinstriped suit with a white shirt and ascot, the entire ensemble fitting him so well that it should be illegal. After a moment, Blaine decides to lean in and tell Kurt just that, and is rewarded for his truthfulness with a gorgeous pink flush high on Kurt's cheeks and a smile that's just on the fun side of naughty.

 

Constance spends most of dinner regaling the group with tales of her many dogs while Woofer nips at everyone's ankles under the table. Jan had left early that morning to meet her wife in town, and so their party is another person short. She was meant to have returned with Liz before dinner, but Puck, who has taken up Jan's seat at the head of the table, says the phones are out and he has no way of contacting her.

 

“That's all very convenient,” Artie says. His comment sounds more conversational than accusing, though Blaine knows that's precisely how he means it.

 

Just as Puck, brow low over his eyes, opens his mouth to retort, the lights flicker and then die. The room is shuttered in silence just as quickly as it had descended into darkness.

 

“Kurt, where are you?” Blaine hears Rachel's shaky voice ask from the other end of the table.

 

“I'm right here, Rachel. It's fine.” Kurt, as much as he's trying to reassure his friend, sounds faintly nervous in his own right, and Blaine reaches over to rest a hand on his arm just as Woofer takes a bite of his bare ankle bone. He kicks out on instinct and hears the dog yelp from under the table.

 

“Oops,” he whispers in Kurt's ear, and Kurt snorts a laugh.

 

“I got this,” Puck tells everyone. “Happens all the time. Stay put and I'll bring candles.”

 

“Jesus, Berry, that was my tit you just groped,” Santana growls. “My no good, absent doctor daddy paid good money for that.”

 

“Money well spent,” Brittany says, and then there is a bright light being carried into the room.

 

After dessert is served and eaten by candlelight, Constance orders Toby to take her and Woofer upstairs to bed and the others all move to the ballroom where the large windows will give them the best view of the light show outside. The storm is spectacular— lighting up the whole sky and reflecting off the pouring rain, which is making a racket bouncing off the windows and roof, echoing all over the house.

 

At half past ten, Puck lifts Artie up the stairs to his room, as the elevator is out of commission, and the others all decide to follow suit. Kurt carries a candelabra, lighting Blaine's way as he and Brittany tackle Artie's chair. Once they've got their friends all safely in their rooms, Kurt walks Blaine to his door.

 

“Goodnight, Blaine,” he whispers, the light from the candles flickering fetchingly across the planes of his face. “If you have a fright during the night, my room is two doors down on the left.” He gives Blaine a flirtatious smirk, then hands over a single candlestick and turns away down the hall. Blaine stands there, leaning against his door until Kurt and his candelabra have disappeared inside his room and he has heard the distinct sound of the lock being turned over.

 

Blaine goes through his own door and locks it behind him, then places his candle down on a table in order to get undressed. The curtains are still wide open, and the lightning illuminates the room every couple of minutes, always trailing closely after is the rumbling thunder.

 

Once undressed, Blaine heads into the bathroom to brush his teeth, bringing the candle with him. As he's brushing away, studying his own eerie reflection in the mirror, he notices something thin and small sitting on the side of the bathtub. He knows he left nothing there, so he turns, assuming the maid must have forgotten something when she came in earlier to tidy.

 

On the edge of the tub sits his straight razor, unfolded with the blade facing towards him. He drops his toothbrush in the sink and lifts the razor, gently closing it, and takes it back into his room and locks it away with his laptop and camera.

 

##

 

He is awoken in the middle of the night by a piercing scream.

 

His first instinct is to burrow under his blankets, because he feels sluggish and it sounded like something from a movie. He tells Artie to turn it down, only to realize that he is not in their apartment in Brooklyn and Artie isn't here. Artie. Blaine jumps out of bed and rushes towards Artie's room to make sure he's all right, only to find him already wheeling himself through the hall. The door to the last room stands open, a bustle of activity around it. When Blaine and Artie arrive, Blaine sees Kurt setting down a candle as Rachel practically tackles him, and a dishevelled and irritated looking Santana stands next to them and rolls her eyes.

 

The room feels cold, and not cold like a day in the winter, but cold like the feeling of someone watching you from the shadows. Blaine shivers and shares a glance with Brittany, who nods at him.

 

“It was her, Kurt! Evelyn Parker! She was standing over me—”

 

“It's not a her, it's a him,” Brittany says, chewing on her cuticles next to the door. “He totally stood next to my bed for, like, an hour last night when I was trying to go to sleep. I told him it was rude to stare and he went away after that.”

 

“Come on, you guys,” Artie says. “There are no actual ghosts. It's all atmosphere. Which, I will admit, is pretty freaking amazing, but it's atmosphere all the same.”

 

“Argue it all you like, but I know what I saw,” Rachel says with a sniff. “And I want to sleep in Kurt's room.” She snuggles back into Kurt's arms and Blaine feels a stab of something like jealousy.

 

Kurt looks dejected for a moment, and then his expression brightens. “But we should stay in here in case she comes back. Artie will want to catch it on tape if she does. Right, Artie?”

 

“Amazing idea, Kurt,” Artie says.

 

“He's not coming back,” Brittany says.

 

“It was a  _she—_  Evelyn Parker—”

 

Brittany shrugs and cuts Rachel off. “Whatever. It's not cold in here anymore. It's been getting warmer since we got here.”

 

“Of course it is, Britt,” Artie argues. “There are six people in this small room. Our body heat is causing a rise in temperature.”

 

“No, it's not the same, the cold before. The cold he brings with him is different.” She looks over at Blaine. “You know it. You noticed.”

 

Blaine doesn't want to admit that he'd felt strange upon entering the room, like cool liquid was being dripped down the back of his neck, all the way down his spine. It still makes him feel a bit unsteady, and admitting to it will do nothing to help. And yet, he doesn't want to leave Brittany hanging, especially when she's looking at him with wide, innocent eyes. “Maybe. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe just adrenaline.” Kurt meets his eye from over Rachel's shoulder and tilts his head to one side. Blaine can't make out his expression in the shadows.

 

With Rachel back in her bed, Santana and Brittany on either side of her, Kurt is free to pull up a chaise lounge from under the windows. He turns to Blaine with a shy smile. “Care to split a chaise?”

 

“I would love to.” Blaine returns Kurt's smile and pulls a throw off of the end of the bed for them to share.

 

And so they settle in together and wait for the ghost to reappear, Artie across the room with his camera ready. Blaine wants to ask Kurt whether or not he believes Rachel, as it seems to him that she is prone to dramatics and might have imagined it, but he waits longer and longer and soon his eyes are heavy and the warm, steadiness of Kurt next to him lulls him to sleep.

 

When Blaine wakes up for the second time that morning, the bed is empty and Artie is long gone from the room as well. There is a soft, warm weight draped across his chest and whatever his head is resting upon is lifting up and down as it breathes.

 

He moves his head off and back to see Kurt's pale eyes watching him, his face warm and flushed. “Um... good morning,” Blaine greets.

 

“I, ah... good morning to you, too.” Kurt lifts his arm from around Blaine's body and Blaine feels sadness at its loss.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Three.**

 

By the time Blaine arrives at breakfast, the others are mostly finished and just sitting around in the dim room. The power has not returned and the rain is still falling steadily outside the windows. Blaine pours himself a bowl of cereal with fresh fruit and waits for Kurt to come down and join him. He'd promised the day before to show Kurt some of his photographs, so he's brought his camera along.

 

Kurt is very late— something about having to manage without a hair dryer, at which Blaine gave a hearty laugh and received a glare in return— so they don't meet until everyone has gathered once again in the ballroom.

 

Santana, surprisingly, is helping Artie search for anything untoward— spot lights, trap doors, sound boxes— when Blaine arrives. Artie is still bound and determined to prove it's all a hoax. Brittany hangs back with a sad look, watching Santana scale the bar. She kicks off her heels once she's reached the top and they clunk loudly onto the floor below. There are mirrors behind the bar and Blaine can see her broken reflection repeated several times as she shuffles the bottles around and shakes her head down at Artie.

 

“You're going to make him sad,” Brittany says, and plants herself in a seat facing the door.

 

Blaine sits down against the opposite wall and flicks on his camera and begins scrolling through the images he's got on the memory card. When he gets to the few he had taken outside the day before, before the rain had begun, he notices a smudge in the lower right hand corner of the first image, near the barn. It's there again in the same part of the frame in his shot of the raven, and repeated in the shots inside of the same barn. When he gets to the quick, shaky photos of the graffiti on the barn's inside wall, the smudge is even more clear. He turns his camera around and removes the lens, checking for scratches or dust or fingerprints, but it is perfectly clean.

 

“Blaine,” Brittany says. “Your special mermaid is here with that girl who kicked me when I was sleeping last night.”

 

Blaine looks up from fiddling with his camera and smiles at Kurt. He seems irritated and is walking quickly as though trying to get away from Rachel, who is forced to run to keep up with his long strides. She looks like something out of a cartoon. Blaine glances over at Kurt as he plops down on the settee next to him and Kurt heaves a sigh. “She's driving me batty,” he says. “Oh my God, I wish it wasn't raining so we could get out of here.”

 

And thus begins the hair conversation, which ends up with Kurt in an even more ornery mood.

 

“What the hell is Santana doing climbing the walls?” Kurt asks after he seems over his little snit.

 

“Looking for proof that the owners are scamming us with a fake haunting.”

 

Kurt turns to Blaine with his eyebrows raised. “Somehow, I don't think they're going to find it,” he says quietly. “This morning I, ah—”

 

But he doesn't get the chance to finish his thought, for Constance hurries into the room, followed by a meek looking Toby.

 

“Woofer is gone!” she exclaims. “My Woofer, I don't know where he is! Toby took him outside and his collar broke in two and he ran off!”

 

# # #

 

“Noah Puckerman, nephew of the current owners of Dresden Hollows. Has worked on the property since the age of fifteen, six years ago,” Artie tells the camera. “Anything to add to that, Puck?”

 

“No, man. Ask me whatever questions you got.”

 

“Do you honestly believe that this property is haunted?”

 

Puck smirks at the camera and then turns to face Artie. “When I first moved here to live with my aunts when I was a kid, I figured it was all a giant load, you know? Ghosts and spooks and murders and crazy shit, but once I started spending time here, I seen things, dude. Stuff appears and disappears and sometimes I hear people whispering when there ain't nobody else around. And me, I'm a total badass, and I gotta admit that I was damn scared the first few times it happened. I thought maybe they was gonna try and hurt me, but they leave me alone.”

 

“You say 'they'. Who do you think 'they' are?”

 

“I dunno, man. The old, dead Dresdens? Evelyn Parker, trying to get revenge? Her death was eventually classified as a suicide, but who screams so loud when they jump off a four story roof that they wake the house? It's not far to fall, and if you know it's coming, why the scream? Seems fishy to me. I think someone pushed that broad, but I don't think it was Jack Dresden. He went into a coma after he seen her dead. I don't think he's the guilty one. But maybe, maybe she's trying to find out who is. Or maybe it was just an accident, chick was drunk and tumbled off the roof. All I'm sayin' is— that railing is pretty high for falling.

 

“But the Dresdens are all dead now. The two daughters— one drowned and the other didn't have no kids. And of course Jack didn't, he lived in the nuthouse 'til he was forty, and he died after being back here a year. Maybe of fright. Maybe of guilt. Who knows?”

 

# # #

 

“You must have really wanted to avoid Rachel to subject yourself to this.” Blaine has to speak loudly to be heard over the roar of the wind and the rain pouring down around them.

 

Kurt grins over at him, blinking water from his eyelashes. “And what's your excuse?”

 

Blaine hums and takes Kurt's arm, turning him in the direction of a building to the right of the garden. “Good company is good company,” he says. “Even in the middle of a monsoon.”

 

The small building, what Blaine assumes to be the gardener's cottage, is locked, so they keep on past it, calling out fruitlessly for the dog. Blaine doubts it could hear them anyway, but Kurt keeps calling its name, so Blaine joins in.

 

“Woofer!”

 

“ _Woofer_!” Kurt accidentally steps into a puddle and pulls back, a disgusted look on his face. Under his hood, his bangs are plastered to his forehead and he looks years younger. “I'm gonna skin that ratty little dog if we do find it,” he grumbles and shakes off his boot.

 

“Heartless.” Blaine grins and slides his hand down to clasp Kurt's and steer him away from another puddle.

 

He feels Kurt squeeze his hand and smiles into the distance, yelling for the dog one more time.

 

“You can't very well say that to me when I know you kicked it under the table last night when the power went out.”

 

Blaine laughs. “It bit my anklebone! I was shocked; you would have kicked it, too.”

 

“I would have kicked it even without that incentive.”

 

“Kurt Hummel, abuser of dogs.”

 

“That thing is not a dog. It's mutated into a miniature version of a dog. A teacup dog. Whose genius idea was that? And why?”

 

“Portability, I suppose,” Blaine muses, and Kurt snorts next to him and then lets out a tremendous sneeze.

 

“Well the next time you're dining with a portable little rodent dog lurking under the table, you might want to wear long pants and socks.”

 

“Are you mocking my fashion choices, Mr. Vogue.com?”

 

“Oh no. I quite like your little anklebones.”

 

Blaine smiles over at Kurt, but he is no longer paying attention. In the distance there is a wrought iron gate with a large cross at the top of the arch. Kurt tilts his head to one side and pulls Blaine in that direction.

 

“We're supposed to be looking for the dog,” Blaine tells him with a laugh.

 

“It's a cemetery full of bones; dogs love bones. Apparently anklebones in particular. Maybe that's where it's hiding.”

 

Inside the gates there are three neat rows of tombstones on either side of a large stone angel. She is staring blankly up at the sky, her arms raised and wings outstretched as though ready to ascend. The raindrops are bouncing off of her open palms and running in rivulets from her face, down her neck and chest.

 

The grave markers have all been kept clear of debris— the weeds and tall grass and dead flowers— but the angel is all but enshrouded. Blaine muses that she looks as though she is trying to escape her grassy prison. He's been standing so long and watching her, that he hadn't noticed Kurt drop his hand and move away, and startles when he sees someone weaving their way between the graves.

 

“I found Jack Dresden!” Kurt hollers above the storm's racket.

 

The mucky ground squishes under Blaine's shoes as he walks over to join Kurt, wiping a hand across his eyes and peering up at the stone angel as he passes her.

 

“God, Blaine,” Kurt says as he approaches. “Look at what it says.”

 

He's bending down, tracing the words carved into the granite with one long, pale finger.

 

_In Death I shall find you._

 

“Isn't it sad?”

 

Blaine nods. The dates on the marker read _March 13, 1904—April 1, 1945_. Jack Dresden had only been forty-one years old when he died.

 

He helps Kurt to stand. He has to smile, because Kurt looks so utterly drenched and he's sure he must look the same. Kurt's bangs are even more plastered to his face than before, and a trail of water runs from his hair, dripping down to bead on his eyelashes. Blaine reaches up and takes the fringe of hair between his fingertips and gently squeezes the water out, wiping away the resulting trail with his thumb. “To help you see our way back,” he says.

 

Kurt laughs. “But we haven't found the dog.”

 

“Screw the dog. We've been out in this long enough. We're going to get sick.”

 

“Blaine Anderson, abandoner of tiny dogs in rain storms. It's only six inches tall, you know. It could drown in a puddle.”

 

Blaine laughs and grabs Kurt's arm, pulling him in the direction of the house. “Well hopefully Britt and Santana found it before it met its grisly demise.”

 

The wide grin slips off his face when he turns and catches another glimpse of the angel. Her once solemn face appears to be smiling now, as if she's enjoyed their joke.

 

“Come on,” he says. “Let's get out of here.”

 

“Blaine, what's wrong?” Kurt asks as Blaine hurries him away from the Dresden family cemetery.

 

“It's nothing.”

 

“It's not nothing. You look as though you've seen a ghost.” Kurt laughs a little at himself. “You haven't, have you? Because this morning, I swear I saw a reflection in a mirror in the hallway that was not mine.”

 

“It was just, well, the angel. It's stupid.” Kurt wraps his fingers more tightly around Blaine's arm and sticks out his bottom lip, shaking his head. Blaine sighs and looks away. “I could have sworn the expression on its face changed. She looked sad, and then before we left, I think she was smiling.”

 

Kurt glances back over his shoulder and shrugs. “I don't think a ghost can make a statue smile. It must have just been a trick of the light. And we can hardly see in this rain.”

 

“I'm sure that's all it was. I've never been a big fan of statues anyway. They creep me out a little.”

 

Kurt makes a cooing sound and pulls Blaine against his side just as they round the corner of the stables. There is a crash of thunder in the distance and after it quiets, Blaine hears a low moan coming from inside.

 

“Should we check?” Kurt looks frightened, but straightens his spine regardless and the two of them inch towards the stable doors.

 

They hear another moan and a sigh and a scraping sound, like furniture being dragged across the floor.

 

What they find inside is not a ghost or even a missing dog, but Brittany and Santana, half naked and locked in an embrace, Santana leaning back on a window ledge, Brittany's face pressed into her bared breasts. She moans again and Kurt pulls Blaine by the hand, covering his eyes with his free one.

 

As they're about to sneak away, Kurt's foot catches on something and he stumbles, dragging Blaine down with him against the door. It slams shut, making a hollow bang that echoes throughout the building.

 

“This ain't no damn peep show,” Santana growls from behind them.

 

Blaine rights himself and helps Kurt to do the same. Kurt's face is red when he catches Blaine's eye and whispers, “That is something I did not ever, ever want to witness.”

 

“Whatever, Ladyface, we're hot as hell and you know it.”

 

“Sorry for, ah, the interruption, ladies,” Blaine says. “We were just looking for the dog.”

 

“Yeah, we were too but then we got bored,” Brittany answers. Blaine is still averting his eyes, but he sees her enter his eyeline, so he assumes they must have put themselves back together.

 

“That chihuahua is fucked in this rain anyway. Probably drowned in a puddle.”

 

“That's what I said,” Kurt answers. He still won't turn in the girls' direction.

 

“Of course you did, Dandy, you and me share the same bitch chromosome. When we figured out that the puddles in his hellhole were deeper than the dog was tall, we decided that there were better things we could be doing with our time than discovering a dog corpse—”

 

“Or dog zombie,” Brittany adds.

 

“—so we found us this cozy little place and started gettin' our lady kisses on.”

 

“Among other things,” Kurt says, pulling a face.

 

“You two can totally have the other side of the room. I make no promises because I love me some blackmail material, but I'm pretty sure we'll be too distracted to sneak a peek at either of your junk.”

 

“Oh my God,” Kurt mutters. “Let's get out of here please.”

 

“And I've already seen Lady Hummel's anyway,” she adds with a smirk in Kurt's direction. “It's pretty impressive. Make sure you use lots of lube, Peewee, because your ass is in for Olympic athlete levels of stretching.”

 

“Santana! God, I'm so sorry,” Kurt says, and nudges Blaine's shoulder, nodding towards the door.

 

Puck's entrance to the stables is drowned out by Santana's cackling and a particularly loud rumble of thunder from overheard.

 

Blaine gives Kurt a smile and shrugs his shoulders, but Kurt still looks mortified, his eyes wide and an angry flush high on his sharp cheekbones.

 

Puck enters the building, the tiny body of Woofer shivering in his arms, wrapped up in an old sweatshirt.

 

“What are you idiots doin' out in the rain?” he asks, looking around the room. “The lightning's close. Are you all morons?”

 

“We were searching for what you've got in your arms,” Kurt tells him.

 

“Yeah. That old broad was flipping her shit,” Santana adds. “Didn't want her to have a damn heart attack.”

 

“That would suck. Especially right now,” Puck says. “'Cause the road is washed out. We're stuck here 'til they get in to fix it. Probably a couple days.”

 

“A couple of days? I'm supposed to be back in the city by Monday. I can't take much more of this country shit. I needs my florescent lights and concrete.”

 

Brittany sticks out her lip and gives Santana a hug, and Blaine smiles as Kurt rolls his eyes, opening the door and leading the way out into the rain and back towards the main house.

 

“My Woofer!” Constance cries as soon as they set foot inside the lounge. She reaches out to take the dog from Puck's arms, but draws back when she sees the state of him, her lip curled in disgust. “Toby, bathe him,” she demands instead, pointing at her grandson.

 

The dog snarls as Toby approaches with arms outstretched and he recoils.

 

“Feisty little guy,” Puck says. “Found him out in one of the barns trying to hump a stray who turned up here a few months back. Thing looks part wolf. Don't know how he thought he was gonna reach.” Puck laughs as Constance lets out a disgusted huff.

 

“Well I never,” she retorts. “Take that filthy thing out of my sight! I never want to set eyes on it again!” She glares at Puck from over her shoulder as she stomps away, as though it's somehow his fault, muttering about  _consorting with common mongrels_  under her breath.

 

Toby heaves a long-suffering sigh when she is out of sight and looks forlornly at the dog. “That's the third one in two years,” he says. “She disowns them when they do something she doesn't like.”

 

“Toby, come!” she yells from the hallway.

 

“Wish she would disown me,” he grumbles and follows in her wake, his shoulders drooping. “I can come for the dog later. I'll find it a home.”

 

“I'll take him,” Brittany says, plucking the dog from Puck's arms and cuddling him to her body, kissing the top of his muddy head. “Won't I, baby?”

 

Toby looks relieved. “I'll bring you his food and dishes in a minute. Thank you.”

 

“ _Toby!_ ”

 

“Gotta go!” And he disappears from the room in a flash.

 

“She must have a lot of money for him to put up with that,” Artie says.

 

“Does Brittany's building even allow pets?” Kurt asks Blaine.

 

“Oh yeah,” Artie answers for him. “She already has a humungous cat. She sweet talked the super.”

 

“Big cat, tiny dog,” Brittany sing-songs. “Let's go give you a bath.”

 

Santana leaves with her, and Kurt and Blaine follow to get changed out of their wet clothes.

 

Afterwards, Blaine heads back to the ballroom for his camera and finds it sitting up on the bar, Santana's heels standing neatly beside it. He grabs both the camera and the shoes and heads to the dining room to meet Kurt for a late lunch.

 

He hadn't gotten the chance to show Kurt his photos before they had been interrupted, so he turns the camera on and begins scrolling through after they've finished their sandwiches and salad.

 

He notices the smudge again as he shows Kurt the photos taken outside before they ran into each other in the garden on the previous day, and after flipping through a few images, mentions it to Kurt. He feels a bit silly, because it's likely something that was on his lens at the time, but Kurt takes the camera from his hands to get a closer look instead of scoffing as Blaine was expecting.

 

“I have no idea what it is, but it's probably nothing. Maybe a smeared raindrop. I probably touched the lens with my fingertip while I was adjusting the settings.”

 

“But it wasn't raining yet,” Kurt says. “And, well, you might not want to hear this, but it looks vaguely person-shaped to me. Can we zoom in?”

 

##

 

Blaine is embarrassed by the state of his luggage when Kurt comes with him into his room. He left his clothes in disarray that morning, rushing to get down to breakfast. He moves his extra camera lenses and razor in order to get at his laptop.

 

They go out to the sitting area to the left of the grand staircase to take a closer look at Blaine's photographs.

 

Kurt watches as he boots up the laptop and connects it to his camera, sitting so closely on the red velvet loveseat that Blaine can feel his body heat and smell the fresh, slightly sweet scent of his cologne.

 

“Why did you even bring your laptop anyway? It's not like there's any Wi-Fi at this place.”

 

Blaine shrugs and clicks on the trackpad, transferring the images from his camera to his harddrive. “I have a paper that I thought I'd get to work on, but, well,” he looks over at Kurt and can't help the wide smile that spreads over his face, “I've been a little... distracted.”

 

“Oh? And what is the source of this distraction, might I ask?” Kurt is watching the bar on Blaine's computer screen, the image thumbnails flying past as they transfer.

 

“Hmm... Must be all of this gorgeous scenery,” Blaine answers. One of Kurt's eyebrows is making a perfect arch above his eye, which is looking more blue than green or grey today, and his cheeks are flushed a lovely rosy colour. Blaine can't get over how smooth and soft his skin appears, even at such close range, with the occasional adorable freckle here and there breaking up the flawless ivory. He's more perfect with these imperfections. “Simply gorgeous,” Blaine hears himself add, slightly breathy.

 

“You've hardly been outside,” Kurt says with a little chuckle. Blaine clears his throat as Kurt turns his gaze away from the computer screen and looks Blaine in the eye. “ _Oh_.”

 

Kurt tilts his head to one side and smiles a little, his fingers running over the supple fabric of the loveseat. “I have to admit that I am equally distracted,” he says, and Blaine's response is interrupted by his file transfer ending with a bonging sound that startles him out of his Kurt-induced stupor.

 

The smudge on the images is difficult to make out in the first few, but once they reach the ones in the barn, the dripping word  _BeDLaM_  in stark relief against the age-bleached barn boards, it's sharper, taking shape.

 

“See what I mean?” Kurt asks in a hushed voice, curling his closer to Blaine's body. “It looks like—”

 

“A man,” Blaine finishes, and he can feel rather than see Kurt nodding next to him.

 

The thought in the forefront of Blaine's mind is that Brittany was right. Not that there must be another explanation for the apparition burned into the image. Not that he should be frightened, and should want to flee the place. But Brittany was right. She said it was a he. She said he stood and stared at her from the foot of her bed. What else has she seen over the years that he has dismissed as a figment of her very unusual and colourful imagination?


	4. Chapter 4

**Four.**

 

The lights flicker to life as Blaine is holding onto one of the bedposts and toeing off his shoes. The ornate light fixture on the ceiling stays illuminated for a handful of seconds before distinguishing again. As Blaine's eyes are readjusting to the gloom, he catches a new burst of light from out of the corner of his eye. A candle is burning on a table against the far wall. He doesn't remember the candlestick having been there when he left the room before dinner, or even when he returned with Kurt afterwards.

 

He removes his sweater vest and bow tie, folds them and places them neatly on the bed before crossing the room.

 

The flame is wavering gently, blowing slightly to one side when he comes to rest next to the table. The candlestick looks antique, but not well restored like the other objects that adorn the house. It's black-spotted silver with a wide bottom, tapering upwards, and is covered in different colours of melted and dried trails of wax. The candle is a creamy white and burned down to its last two inches, a melted pool of wax beneath the flaming wick as though it has been burning for quite some time. As Blaine watches, a stream of wax breaks through the hardened rim of the candle and slips down the side to join the many other trails. Sitting on the table at its base is Blaine's razor, and there are a few small, hardened spots of wax on its side.

 

He decides to leave it where it is this time. Whether it's the staff or the ghosts who are attempting to frighten him, they've done their job and he's not going to make it easier for them by hiding it away again. Even still, his hands are shaking as he changes into his pyjamas.

 

It gets hot during the night. Blaine feels like someone cranked up the heat, but he's too tired and groggy to get up and check, so he just peels off his pyjama top and flings it to the bottom of the bed. He drifts off again quickly, and doesn't wake back up until he hears a loud booming sound which he at first assumes is the thunder outside.

 

It takes him a while to become coherent enough to realize that someone is pounding on the door to his room.

 

It's Artie.

 

“Blaine, come quick! Something is going down, man.”

 

Blaine is too groggy to argue or even ask questions. He steps back into his room and gropes through his suitcase until he finds a t-shirt. He doesn't even pull it on before following Artie out into the hall.

 

“What's going on?” Blaine mumbles, rubbing a hand through his messy hair and over his face. He can see the moon outside the window. The sky is clear, the moon bright and about half full. He wonders what time it is and is relieved to see that it seems to have stopped raining. Even still, a moment later he hears a low rumble of thunder. He realizes that Artie is speaking to him, his hands waving excitedly in the air, so he turns away from the windows and tries to focus on him. He wipes his eyes again and stifles a yawn.

 

“— the music, Blaine. Didn't you hear it? When I came out here, the hall downstairs was lit up with the lights coming out of the ballroom. It was like a damn Gatsby party and now it's just stopped like it was all my imagination. But you know me better than that. I don't imagine stuff like that.”

 

“I, um, no,” Blaine answers.

 

“You don't know me better than that?”

 

“No... I didn't hear any music. I was asleep.” He yawns hugely again. “Don't tell me the great sceptic, Artie Abrams, is now a believer.”

 

Artie snorts a laugh and waves his hand through the air. “No way, man. That was totally set up, I'm telling you. It's phony as hell, but that phony shit is golden. I gotta catch it on tape. So it got me thinking— I came up here to debunk all this crazy ghost stuff, but what if, instead, I end up making the next  _Blair Witch Project_  or  _Paranormal Activity_? No budget, film student gold.”

 

“Uh huh.” Blaine is trying very hard to be supportive, but he really just wants to go back to bed and sleep until the sun is actually up.

 

Kurt comes stumbling out of his room just as Artie wheels himself to the head of the stairs, his fingers out in front of him, framing the shots in his head.

 

“Did you hear it?” Kurt asks, voice high pitched with either excitement or nerves. Blaine can't make out his features clearly enough to figure out which.

 

“No, I—” Blaine catches Kurt's stare and realizes he never did put on the shirt that he'd grabbed. Flushing, he tugs it on over his head.

 

“The party sounds?” Artie asks, turning excitedly and wheeling towards Kurt.

 

“Yeah. The music was so loud it was shaking the floor of my room. It was definitely jazz, too. A phantom jazz-era party,” Kurt says. He wraps his arms around himself and looks nervously down the stairs.

 

“Dude, relax,” Artie tells him. “It's a set up. The people who run this place are playing us for fools.”

 

“I don't know,” Kurt says, shaking his head and teetering back and forth on his heels. “Before I came out I was in my bathroom looking in the mirror.” He gives Blaine a quick, almost embarrassed look before glancing back at Artie. That's when Blaine notices how perfect Kurt's hair is. Did he fix himself up in the off chance that he would run into Blaine in the hallway? He grins to himself, but it falls away quickly as Kurt's eyes flit nervously around. “I saw someone reflected in the mirror, and it wasn't me. And there was no one else in the room. They would have been pretty hard to miss.”

 

“I'm telling you, they can do tricks with mirrors and light, and don't even get me started on trap doors and secret passages.”

 

Kurt abandons his fear, his arms dropping to his sides as he rolls his eyes. “This isn't an episode of  _Scooby Doo_ , Artie,” he grumbles. “And there are no people in disguises who are gonna call us a bunch of meddling kids when we uncover their clever ruse.”

 

Blaine laughs, garnering him a glare from his roommate. “Kurt's right, Artie. We may be cheap knock-offs of the Scooby gang, but Jan doesn't seem like the type of person who would purposely terrify her guests. And besides, as much as I might not want to admit it, I've seen some pretty unexplainable things myself since we arrived.”

 

“Sure Jan is a sweet old lady, but don't let that fool you. It's always the sweet old ladies. Look at the original  _Friday the 13_ _th_.”

 

“You keep telling yourself that, Wheels, but the lovechild of  _Sesame Street's_  Bob and Mr. Hooper over there is right.” Santana motions to Blaine with her head. She looks dishevelled, and she gives Kurt a lascivious eyebrow waggle as she wipes the back of her hand across her mouth. He grimaces and looks away, and satisfied that she has grossed him out, she turns back to Artie. “Me and Britts saw some crazy shit downstairs earlier, interrupted our christening a broom closet. There was a damn party going on and nobody born after the turn of the last century got an invite.”

 

“Oh please.” Artie leans his head against the back of his chair and looks up at the ceiling.

 

“Truth, Stumbles. I could hear the beads on their old timey dresses clacking together and their chattering about gin and dancing and speakeasies. It was weird. I could feel the heat from the lights and the speakers shaking the place with that boring ass music, but when we turned the corner, there was nobody there.”

 

“Maybe you scared them away,” Kurt says. Santana purses her lips and shrugs one shoulder.

 

“I can get my Ouija Board,” Brittany says, breaking her contemplative silence. “If you guys want to get invited to the party.”

 

“I don't think that's such a good idea.” Kurt looks petrified at the very thought. “In a house like this? You said yourself that the spirit might be malevolent.”

 

“I did?” Brittany asks. She pumps her fist in the air. “Awesome.”

 

“Come on, Kurt, it's not real,” Artie says. “And it'll be perfect for my film. Get it, Britt.”

 

Artie goes with her across the hall to her room and Santana stalks like a tigress towards Kurt, a smirk on her full lips.

 

“It's all good, Raspberry Tart. What's the worst that could happen? If you start snivelling like a kindergartner maybe Prince Eyebrows will snuggle you. He seems like the chivalrous type.” She winks at Blaine. “And besides, he looks pretty cute without his grandpa clothes and the hairdo of a circa 1950s dweeb.”

 

Kurt shuts his eyes for a moment before looking directly at Blaine. He mouths,  _I'm so sorry._  Blaine shrugs. Kurt can't be held responsible for his friend's remarks, and Santana seems to hand out the same sort of backwards compliments to everyone, so he doesn't take it personally. Still, he tries to be stealthy when he lifts a hand to his hair and tries to flatten down his bedhead. He hopes his curls aren't completely unruly.

 

“Fine,” Kurt says. “But if we're doing this, I'm getting Rachel.”

 

“You might not want to do that,” Santana says, picking at her nails. “But whatever. I don't care enough to argue with you.”

 

Kurt rolls his eyes and flicks on a flashlight before wandering down the hall.

 

Santana spends the next minute staring out the window and ignoring Blaine's presence. She doesn't look around again until Kurt comes rushing back. “She's not there!”

 

“Who's not where?” Artie asks, rolling out of Brittany's room with a lap full of unlit candles.

 

“I told you, it's a he,” Brittany says exasperatedly.

 

“Rachel. Her room's empty. Her bed hasn't even been slept in.”

 

Brittany giggles.

 

“Strawberry Shortcake's fine, calm your designer boots,” Santana says. She gives Brittany a little wink and Brittany giggles again.

 

“You know where she is?” Kurt asks.

 

“Yep. But she asked me not to tell you, so I'm not getting into it.”

 

Kurt scrunches up his face. “Why?”

 

“I don't know,” Santana answers with a roll of her eyes. “Maybe because you'll go all Judge Judy on her.”

 

Kurt looks seriously offended and maybe a little bit hurt. Blaine moves towards him, dodging around Artie and Brittany who have checked out of the conversation and are setting up a circle of candles on the floor near the top of the stairs. “When do I judge?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don't judge.”

 

“Seriously? This coming from the guy who once threatened to buy a paintball gun and shoot us off the fire escape if we dared go out wearing something you hadn't approved of?”

 

Kurt huffs. “Other than poor clothing choices,” he says. “When else do I judge?”

 

“Oh, I don't know...  _Brody_?”

 

Kurt's arms drop from their protective position and fall to his sides and his hands ball into fists. “Me?! You're the one who thought he was a drug dealer!”

 

“You agreed with me.”

 

“Only after you presented such a stellar argument,” he says with a sniff.

 

“Oh. Well thanks, Ladyface. I took my time putting that together.” She nods at Kurt and he nods back. It's the strangest and quickest end to an argument Blaine has ever witnessed. He'd thought they were quite upset with each other, but they seem perfectly friendly again.

 

Brittany has set up her Ouija Board on the floor in the centre of the circle of candles and she and Artie are waiting there, looking over, the candles casting a golden glow on their faces.

 

Santana throws an arm around Kurt's waist and gives him a squeeze before moving away to sit next to Brittany. Blaine and Kurt move in close and watch as Santana helps Brittany light the last of the candles.

 

Kurt still seems worried, glancing over his shoulder towards their rooms, towards Rachel's room in particular. Blaine doesn't think Santana would tell Kurt that Rachel is fine if she didn't know it to be a fact. He decides to try and lighten the mood, even with what they're about to do.

 

“The threat of paintball?” he teases, poking Kurt lightly in the side. “Now I'll be worried every time I choose an outfit during our stay.”

 

Kurt turns his watchful gaze away from the hallway and smiles at Blaine. “I didn't bring it with me— you're safe,” he says and laughs. “And you'd be safe anyway, Blaine. You're perfect.” He looks into Blaine's eyes, his hand reaching up to finger at one of the curls that's hanging down onto Blaine's forehead. Blaine feels warm and tingly and he wants nothing more than to lean forward and up and press his lips to Kurt's. He can tell that Kurt is thinking the same thing, but then his expression changes and he tilts his head to one side, looking Blaine up and down. “Although, I was thinking earlier... do you have anything in the red family? I imagine red would be absolutely spectacular on you.'

 

“Oh, um, red.” Blaine nods stupidly, trying to tear his gaze away from Kurt's lips. “I will keep that in mind.”  _And buy a whole new wardrobe of nothing but_.

 

“Baaaarrrfffff,.” Santana says with a groan, getting to her feet. “Fashion flirting. Be more stereotypically gay, boys. Come on, Wheels, let's go get your camera shit and get this show on the road so I can resume getting my orgasm on with Britt instead of summoning some ghost chick with a Hasbro toy.”

 

 

Blaine feels uneasy sitting in the circle, his knees touching Kurt's on one side and Brittany's on the other. Artie is on the outside with his camera at the ready, giving them direction as to how frightened they ought to look.

 

“Don't go over the top,” he warns. “This needs to look legit on film. Keep your expressions of terror subtle and try not to knock over a candle unless the tension breaks and you need to run away from the board. I need all the light I can get.”

 

Brittany instructs them all to put one finger on the planchette and quiet their minds, opening them up to the spirit world. Blaine isn't quite sure what she means by that, but it doesn't seem like the smartest idea to him. What sort of spirits might they contact? He's never done anything like this.

 

Kurt shifts next to him, leaning more weight against Blaine's knee. Blaine looks over at him and tries to smile. Kurt smiles back and winks, and then Brittany is asking if anyone is there and Blaine feels his arm move as the planchette slides across the board, taking his finger with it.

 

The pointed end of the plastic device comes to a rest on the  **YES**  in the top left hand corner of the board. There is a sun and a moon, both with creepy, grinning mouths, in the between the  **YES**  and the  **NO**  in the other top corner, and underneath them, the twenty-six letters of the alphabet and the numbers  **0**  to  **9**  in elaborate black printing. There is fancy scrolling around the board, offset with smiling cherubs and frowning devils, and at the very bottom, the word  **GOODBYE**. Blaine stares at the word, a chill running down his spine. It seems ominous, that word, as well as the iciness he feels and Brittany's disconnected, monotone voice speaking next to him. She sounds so far away, but he can feel the heat of her knee pressing tightly against his own.

 

“Are we invited to the party?” Brittany asks, and Blaine has the sudden and unexpected urge to laugh at her ridiculous question. He feels a little giddy in his nervousness.

 

The planchette slides across the board over the sun and moon and stops on the  **NO**.

 

Brittany sticks her lip out. “I wanted to dance the Charleston,” she says with a sigh.

 

Before she can ask another question, Kurt speaks up from Blaine's other side. “Where is Rachel?” he asks.

 

Santana scoffs from across the circle and Brittany giggles again as the planchette begins to journey down the board towards the alphabet.

 

It stops on the letter  **S**  first, and Brittany says it aloud. Next it swings up to  **E** , and then down to **R** ,  **V** ,  **A** ,  **N** ,  **T**  and finally back to  **S**.

 

“Servants?” Kurt sounds puzzled. “What the hell does that mean?”

 

Santana cackles and Brittany joins in with an airy laugh. “You moved it,” Kurt accuses.

 

“Did not,” Santana says.

 

“Come on, guys,” Artie chastises from the sidelines. “I'm gonna have to edit this all out.”

 

“Fine,” Kurt says and sniffs. “I'll find out about Rachel later.” It's quiet for a moment, and then Kurt speaks up again. “Is this Evelyn Parker?” he asks. “I loved your film,” he adds when the planchette doesn't move for several seconds. “I wish I would have had the chance to see you on stage.”

 

“It's not a girl,” Brittany tells him when the planchette continues to remain perfectly still over the  **S**.

 

“Right,” Kurt says with a nod. “Sorry,” he adds, leaning in towards the board to offer his apologies. He looks around the room after he sits back up, covering all of his bases.

 

The smile at Kurt's adorableness slides off of Blaine's face very quickly, for the room has suddenly become cold again. He shifts more in Kurt's direction on instinct— he seems calm, whereas Brittany has gone stiff on his other side.

 

The planchette begins to move finally, though no one has asked another question.

 

It shifts to the  **N**  and then the  **O** , then pauses for a long moment before quickly spelling out  **A** - **C** - **C** - **I** - **D** - **E** - **N** - **T**.

 

“No accident,” Kurt says out loud, his voice little more than a whisper. “Did you jump like they say?”

 

The planchette moves quickly this time, shooting up the board so fast that Blaine's finger nearly slips off. It goes to the top right, to the word  **NO**. But instead of resting there this time, it swings back and points at the word over and over. If a small piece of footed plastic can be angry, this one sure is. After the dozenth time it has all but yelled the word no, it finally stops on the image of the creepy, grinning moon.

 

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Blaine breathes in the scent of the melting wax and readjusts his position on the floor, for his arm is beginning to feel cramped in the weird, outstretched position he's had it in for so long.

 

He thinks maybe they should stop, for it's getting cold again and he doesn't like it, doesn't like the way it makes him feel and how it makes his heart race for no earthly reason. He's never been superstitious, has never believed in things he couldn't see with his own two eyes, but this feeling is something he cannot explain, and that in and of itself makes him very nervous.

 

Santana clears her throat before she speaks, and from there on out, Blaine finds, everything seems to speed up as though someone hit fast forward. “So you were murdered after all,” she says.

 

The planchette moves so swiftly this time that Blaine's finger slips off the plastic and he knocks his elbow against the corner of the board. Kurt, Brittany and Santana manage to keep their fingers on until it reaches the word  **GOODBYE**  at the bottom, but they all lose their grip then, and Blaine watches, wide eyed, as the planchette shoots off the board and flies between his body and Kurt's. He can hear the dull clacking as it hits marble over and over, tumbling down the stairs.

 

There is a high, disgruntled shout, and soon Rachel appears at the top of the stairs holding the planchette in her hand, Puck following close behind.

 

“Who threw this at me?” she asks, irritated.

 

No one answers her. They all just stare at the object in her hand, stunned into silence.

 

The cold is gone.

 

# # #

 

“Emma Pillsbury, head of staff at Dresden Hollows for the past five years.”

 

Emma sits up very straight in her chair and looks directly at Artie, her hands folded primly in her lap. Her eyes are wide and she looks nervous. Blaine wonders why she had agreed to be interviewed by Artie when the entire situation clearly makes her uncomfortable.

 

“Have you seen anything in this house that you considered to be otherworldly?” Artie begins.

 

She bobs her head up and down at a rapid pace, her hands twisting more tightly together. “I have,” she says, then goes quiet again.

 

“What sorts of things?' Artie prompts.

 

Emma glances towards the door of the room and back to Artie again. She swallows audibly. “There have been many instances of, um, well, my things being moved from place to place. My work things. My cleaning products. No one has access to my closets but me. But occasionally, my keys go missing here and there. They are always returned, but not always in their proper place, which I'm not overly fond of.”

 

“But how can you be sure that it's not a real, live person messing with your supplies?” Artie asks.

 

“Because I've, um, I've seen things. Heard things too. Objects floating through the air, faces in my mirror, music and voices and—” She stops mid-thought and her mouth quivers. The thin, nervous hands in her lap are twisted so tightly together that it looks painful.

 

“And what, Miss Pillsbury?” Artie coaxes. Blaine finds that he is on the edge of his seat waiting for her response. She seems as though she knows things, has since he'd first talked to her upon their arrival. It feels like weeks ago now.

 

“Sometimes things are left for me. Things that soon after disappear and I never see them again.”

 

“What sorts of things?” Blaine finds himself asking. He can feel Artie's eyes on him, but he doesn't look away from Emma. He knows he's not meant to interfere with Artie's work, just stay quiet and helpful in the background, but he needs to know.

 

“Notes and letters. Newspaper clippings. Photographs.” She shifts in her chair, recrossing her ankles and flattening her skirt with the palms of her hands before twisting them together once more. “I tried to ignore them at first, but they never go away until I've looked at them. Read them.”

 

“What do they say?”

 

“I, um...” She looks like a frightened animal again, her eyes flitting nervously around the room, stopping for a noticeable beat on each exit. “The pictures aren't all personal ones. Some are professional glossy photographs signed by Evelyn Parker herself. Then there are ones of her with Jack Dresden here at the house at a party, or dressed for dinner. The letters are between them, sent back and forth from here and New York City before she came to visit for the summer. And the notes... Well, I'm not sure whether I should talk about those.”

 

Artie is leaning forward, a look of excitement on his face. “Oh please do,” he says. “If whoever is leaving these things out for you wanted them kept secret, then why bring them to you in the first place? They must want the information known. Maybe they're hoping you can piece together the clues and solve the mystery. Or they just need someone to sympathize with them?”

 

Emma nods slowly, considering. “You're probably right, I just— They seem a little personal to me, those notes. They were written at this house while she was staying here. It seems that she and Jack would meet up on the roof at scheduled times each night, after the house was mostly asleep. They wanted privacy to discuss their secret plans. You see, Evelyn had made a movie the previous year, and she was being offered a deal in Hollywood to star in several more. And Jack, he didn't want her to go at first, but then decided he would run away with her, that they would elope and settle out west. He didn't care about being disinherited. All he cared about was Evelyn.” She pauses for a moment, seeming shocked that she's spit it all out, barely taking a breath. “And that was the gist of the notes, I guess.”

 

“Can I ask you a somewhat personal question, Miss Pillsbury?”

 

She nods a little hesitantly.

 

“Do you trust your employers?”

 

Her brow furrows, her large eyes narrowing slightly. “Completely,” she answers. “If you're suggesting that they would set out to torment me in that manner, then you are out of line. They are like family to me.”

 

“I apologize. I only wish to examine every possible explanation.”

 

Emma rises from her seat and gives Artie a curt nod. As she's leaving, she looks over at Blaine. In her eyes he sees the same warning he had before.

 

# # #

 

“My new dog is traumatized by the sound of his old name because of the mean lady who gave it to him,” Brittany informs everyone, the dog in question seeming perfectly fine and in good spirits, licking her chin, tail wagging a mile a minute. “So I need everyone's help coming up with something new. I'm taking suggestions in a box in my room. Please submit them anonymously; I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. At least I don't want to know whose feelings I'm hurting when I tell you your name ideas suck.”

 

They are seated in the lounge, having just eaten lunch. Kurt seems on edge, has since the night before. Blaine isn't sure if it's because of the Ouija Board session or due to the argument Blaine had overheard between Kurt and Rachel that morning. Blaine wants to ask him about it, thinking he might feel better if he talks it out, but he's not sure if that would be overstepping. Although it feels as if he's known Kurt for ages, it has only been a few days, and he doesn't want to stick his nose in if his help isn't wanted.

 

Puck comes tromping by the door, cursing under his breath, Emma hurrying after him carrying something large and bright yellow. He waves her off, and Blaine can hear her sweet voice speaking quickly to him, though he cannot make out her words. A second later the front door of the house slams shut and Emma walks past the door to the lounge again, still carrying the yellow object, which Blaine suspects is a rain suit.

 

“Miss Pillsbury!” Rachel raises her voice to catch her attention, jumping out of her seat next to Santana and rushing towards the door. “Where is Noah going?”

 

“Noah?” Kurt whispers in Blaine's ear. He shivers at the sensation of Kurt's warm breath and nearly forgets to answer.

 

“That's his first name.”

 

“Ah.” Kurt nods. He opens his mouth and leans in to whisper something more just as Emma steps into the room with a solemn look on her face. Kurt pauses, his mouth still only inches from Blaine's ear, and watches her. Blaine can't help but keep his eyes on Kurt; as close as he is, Blaine can make out the myriad of colours in his eyelashes and each tiny freckle in the smattering across the bridge of his nose.

 

“Mrs. Russell is having heart issues,” she says. When everyone's face shows mostly confusion, she clarifies. “Constance. The lady who has the— who  _had_  the dog.”

 

Brittany holds Woofer up and kisses his nose. “The dog who still needs a name,” she says.

 

“Yes, well, she's been complaining that her heart is racing and skipping beats, so Noah has gone out to see if he can get past the washout and to the main road to go for help.”

 

Rachel places one hand dramatically over her open mouth, the other over her heart. “That's so unbelievably brave!” she exclaims.

 

“Yes.” Emma looks uncomfortable with Rachel's theatrics. “He's in charge when his aunts aren't here, after all,” she says. “I only wish he would have taken the rain suit. He's opening himself up to a host of germs and he'll end up with pneumonia. And drag all manner of water and muck into the house.” She shudders, calling over her shoulder to ring the bell if they need her for anything as she leaves to go check on Constance.

 

Blaine feels terrible. He wishes there was something he could do to help. He and Kurt share a look as they walk back and forth in front of the windows in the ballroom, where the group had decided to move in order to have a better view of Puck on his return. The move had been spearheaded by Rachel, who has pulled up a seat in front of the centre window and is wringing her hands while she sits and waits. Kurt stops pacing to pat her on the shoulder every few minutes, but it's mostly Santana who comforts her, which surprises Blaine.

 

“She's been spending a lot of time with that Puck guy,” Kurt tells Blaine in a quiet voice when their mutual pacing takes them to a far corner of the room. “I got angry at her for hiding it from me, then she accused me of not paying her any attention anyway, and— I guess I feel a little guilty for yelling at her now. I think she really likes him.”

 

“He'll be fine.” Blaine smiles and tries to sound reassuring, but just then there is a loud gust of wind that rattles the windows in their panes and sends a sheet of rain hammering on the glass. It nearly drowns out his words and kind of defeats their purpose anyway.

 

Over an hour passes before Blaine makes out the glow of a headlight through the mist outside. He hears the buzz and rumble of Puck's motorbike a handful of seconds after.

 

Rachel jumps up out of her seat and takes the two remaining steps to the window. “He's doesn't look right,” she says.

 

He does look unsteady on the bike. It shifts under him as he rounds the corner too sharply, and then he disappears from view. They make their way to the front door as a group, Rachel in the lead. She throws the heavy wood open to find Puck limping his way towards them. Santana and Brittany make it to him first, and each grab one of his arms to help him the rest of the way inside.

 

“Twisted my damn ankle,” he grumbles, wincing as Rachel wraps her fingers gently around his injury. “Couldn't get past the end of the driveway. The road is in real bad shape.”

 

Emma appears as though summoned. “Mrs. Russell is feeling much better,” she tells Puck, kneeling down to look at his ankle. “But I would still feel better if we could speak to Jan or Liz. We need to get her out of here as soon as we can.”

 

“I'd be in a rush to get the old broad outta my hair too, if I were you,” Santana mutters.

 

“I went down instead of up. No idea if there's cell service at the top of the hill. After I'm feeling a little better, I'll hike up there—”

 

“You will not, Noah,” Emma says. “This ankle is very likely sprained. I'll get gauze and ice packs and that set of crutches we found last year.”

 

“Yes, Miss P,” Puck agrees with a hang-dog look on his face. Her expression softens as she stands and reaches out as though to pat him on top of the head. She grimaces and retracts her hand after a moment, probably realizing that Puck is soaking wet and there is mud splashed all over him.

 

“I'll be right back,” she says instead, and hurries away.

 

Puck tries to move as soon as her footfalls have died off. He winces and curses, then takes a deep breath and rests his head back against the wall. “I need to go check on a signal,” he grumbles to himself. “That old lady might have a damn heart attack or somethin'.”

 

“I'll go,” Kurt offers. Blaine and the others all look at him and he lifts his chin into the air and ignores them in favour of Puck. “Just point me in the right direction.”

 

“I'll go with you,” Blaine says. There is no way he would allow any of these people to go hiking in the storm alone. And so what if the others are all smirking at him. It's the truth.

 

Kurt smiles. “Thank you, Blaine,” he says. “I would appreciate the company.”

 

They head to their rooms to change into casual clothing, agreeing to meet back up with Puck in the lounge for instructions. Kurt was smart enough to power down his phone when they arrived in the valley, so he still has a full charge, whereas Blaine's own phone had died the night before. And so Kurt is clutching it in his hand when he descends the grand staircase just after Blaine, and what he is wearing sets Blaine immediately to laughing.

 

It's the bright yellow rain suit he had seen Emma trying to coax Puck into wearing earlier before he went out in the storm.

 

“Something funny?” Kurt asks, reaching behind him to straighten his shiny plastic hood.

 

Blaine shakes his head, more laughter gurgling up his throat. “Not at all.”

 

“Uh huh. Well, at least I am prepared for all manner of inclement weather on this outing. Unlike some people.”

 

Blaine looks down at his own jeans and hoodie and sneakers and grins up at Kurt. “You're right. And I do love a well-prepared man,” he says and winks, then offers Kurt his arm, which he graciously accepts.

 

With phone numbers for Jan, Liz, and all sorts of emergency personnel deep in their pockets and very detailed directions from Puck, Blaine and Kurt set off up the hill.

 

When they first leave the house the wind is gusting so strongly that they are forced to walk sideways, for it keeps blowing them off course. As they distance themselves from the house, however, it begins to die down, making it easier to climb their way to the top of the hill. The rain even lets up a little, just to where it no longer stings when it hits them in the face, the only part of Kurt besides his hands that isn't wrapped in plastic.

 

Blaine can see the top, can see the L-shaped tree that Puck had described to them, complete with red emergency tape wound around its wide trunk. He's about to point it out to Kurt when Kurt speaks himself, his words nearly swallowed up as the wind picks up again.

 

“What is that?” is about all he can make out, and Kurt motioning off the path and up.

 

He's pointing at another tree about twenty feet off of the beaten path. It has long, gnarly limbs covered in moss, and at the base of these limbs there is a small structure, like a rudimentary box without a lid, attached to the trunk. It doesn't belong there— trees do not grow boxes— and before Blaine can wave it off as nothing of importance, Kurt tugs him by the hand and they're trudging over the squishy ground in its direction.

 

It has been nailed to the trunk of the tree. Blaine can see the heads of the two nails used to secure it, each one rusted, the orange bleeding over onto the wood around it. “Who do you think put it there?” Blaine asks as Kurt moves closer, poking a finger into the box and running it along the inside.

 

Kurt shrugs his shoulders and stands back upright. “It's creepy,” he says, still studying the box on the tree, his head titled to one side. “Why would someone put it there in the first place?”

 

“Maybe it's the base for something else that broke away,” Blaine suggests.

 

Kurt shrugs again. “Regardless, I suppose we should do what we came out here for,” he says, turning away from the tree. His foot catches in the roots and he pitches forward. Blaine reaches out to catch him, but he's too late. Kurt falls to the muddy ground, his body making a squelching sound when it lands.

 

“Are you all right?” Kurt turns himself over and looks up at Blaine with his eyes narrowed, a streak of mud across his cheekbone and a glob filling the divot in his chin. He looks so mildly irritated that Blaine can't help the snort of laughter that comes out of him. The snort turns into a chuckle, and then erupts into hearty guffaws.

 

“A gentleman would have helped me up before laughing at me, at the very least,” Kurt grumbles from the ground. “Are you having fun laughing at me up there?”

 

“Yep,” Blaine says and giggles again. “What are you gonna do about it?”

 

“I dunno.” Kurt sucks on his bottom lip as though milling it over. And Blaine should have known. He really should have. “Probably this,” Kurt says, and he reaches over in a flash and takes Blaine's ankle in his hand and tugs, pulling him down next to him in the mud.

 

Blaine lets out an  _oof_ , and erupts into another fit of laughter, raindrops falling onto his eyelids and into his open mouth. He's already soaked through from the rain, but now he feels disgusting, reams of wet, squelchy mud up his back and in his shoes.

 

“Now how do you feel about well-prepared men?” Kurt asks in a smug tone.

 

Blaine turns onto his side in the mud and grins at him. “Oh, I don't know. Still pretty good, I dare say.”

 

Kurt is smirking at him, the rain streaking the mud on his face and plastering his hair to his forehead. Blaine thinks he's never seen anything more tempting in his life. He leans forward and gives in to that temptation, taking Kurt's bottom lip into his mouth and sucking gently, tasting the rain, before kissing him more chastely, a simple press of lips.

 

Kurt is watching him with wide eyes and a flush high on his cheeks. “Well then,” he says, voice breathy. And Blaine finds his face being grabbed forcefully with cold, muddy hands, and Kurt is kissing him passionately there on the side of a muddy hill in the middle of the woods, in the middle of a rainstorm.

 

Blaine forgets all about the rain and the muck and wind and the fact that they're meant to be trying to make a phone call. Kurt pulls away and reminds him all at once, and he wishes he could dive back in and forget for another few minutes. Or hours.

 

He can still taste rainwater and the light sweetness of Kurt's mouth as he helps Kurt to his feet. Kurt catches him licking his lips and gives him a flirty smile. “Later,” he says, and hauls Blaine back in the direction of the path.

 

The view from the top of the hill by the red taped tree is spectacular. Blaine only hopes that the rain stops before they leave and he and Kurt can climb back up with his camera next time.

 

Blaine loses focus on the surrounding beauty when Kurt begins unzipping his rain suit. “Are you taking that off?” he blurts out.

 

Kurt pauses to glance up at him and huffs a laugh. Then he begins shimmying his hips and humming striptease music as he slowly undoes the long zipper on the front of the rain suit. He stops after a moment and grins. “No,” he says, and reaches a hand inside of his top, pulling out his cell phone.

 

Blaine watches as he fiddles with the phone, wiping off the splatters of rain with his sweater before pressing the top button to turn on the screen. His brow furrows after a moment and he presses the button again, and again and again. He shakes the phone and swipes his finger across the screen and tries the power button once more. “It's dead,” he says. He looks over at Blaine and shakes his head. “I had a nearly full charge, Blaine. I charged it just before we lost the power and it's been turned off ever since until I tried it in my room before we left. It was still full.”

 

Blaine moves closer and glances down at the black screen of the phone in Kurt's hand. “Maybe the battery drained because it was constantly searching for a signal?”

 

“In twenty minutes? No. Something weird is going on.” He looks at the tree with the red tape around its trunk and down over the valley in the direction of the house. “Somebody doesn't want us going anywhere.”

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Five.**

 

Puck is waiting for them on the front steps of the house when they get back, leaning heavily on a pair of crutches. “Any luck?” he shouts above the wind. They shake their heads in unison and Puck's face falls. Blaine can see his mouth form numerous expletives before he turns and props open the door for them to enter.

 

Dinner is sombre that night. Constance and Toby are eating in their rooms and everyone else has abandoned the rule about dressing for dinner and are sitting around in jeans and t-shirts, Brittany even going so far as to come down in a pair of flannel pyjama pants and a hooded sweatshirt, her newly acquired dog sleeping in the front pocket. After they've eaten, she produces a shoebox covered in coloured construction paper and trails of glitter glue and passes out crookedly cut slips of paper.

 

“I was disappointed to find no name suggestions in my box,” she chastises. “I don't think any of you are taking this seriously.” She looks around the table, pausing for a beat on each person. “My dog is going through something, and he needs all of your help.”

 

“We're trapped here and she's worried about that little rodent?” Kurt grumbles under his breath. Still, he smiles at Brittany when she drops a pen and a slip of paper on the table in front of him.

 

Blaine stares down at his own paper, grateful for the distraction. He's not sure what to call a dog— he was never allowed to have one as a child. He glances over at Kurt, who seems to be having similar trouble, staring down at his paper with a furrowed brow and twirling his bright pink gel pen between his fingers. Blaine looks around at the others, a group of misfits with mismatched clothes and unkempt hair, and that's when inspiration strikes him. He jots down the name and folds the paper in half, then gets up from his chair to walk around the table and slide it into Brittany's brightly decorated shoebox.

 

Everyone retires to their rooms rather than grouping in any of the common areas after dinner. There is an air of exhaustion and a sort of acceptance spreading throughout the house. They can't do anything about their situation at the moment, so they're all sitting tight and waiting. Waiting for what, Blaine isn't sure. The tension is tight like an elastic band about to snap. His only worry is that when it does, someone will be stung in the process.

 

He and Kurt trudge up the staircase to Blaine's room without discussing where they're headed. Blaine is pleased to find that Kurt is comfortable enough to climb onto his bed and curl up amongst the pillows. “I never thought I'd ever want to leave once I got here, but I want to go home,” Kurt says.

 

Blaine swings back and forth on one of the bed posts for a moment before crawling onto the bed next to Kurt. He knows exactly what he means. After being outside today, after having hope and losing it so quickly, he's beginning to worry that they may be trapped in the valley without contact with the outside world for an inordinate amount of time. Then he remembers Artie telling him the day before that the owners of the property are on the outside and well aware of the fact that their guests are trapped beyond the impassable road. He used it as further proof that they have been orchestrating everything since even before they arrived, but Blaine takes it as a glimmer of hope. Jan was a smart, kind lady and he's sure that she is working arduously to get them out of here. After a moment, he relays this thought to Kurt and is rewarded with a smile and a peck on the cheek.

 

He watches Kurt's serene face. He has a little dimple in one cheek when he smiles a certain way. After a moment of staring, Blaine leans in and presses a light kiss to the dimple, and then another to the one in Kurt's chin for good measure. When he inches back he feels Kurt's arms wind around his neck, and he's reeled in, his lips landing directly on Kurt's own this time.

 

Kurt is very vocal, letting out little hums and moans of pleasure as they kiss and run their hands over each other's backs and arms and waists and hips. It's getting warm in the room, Blaine notices, and not just the natural sort of warm that comes with the exchange of body heat. He's loath to pull away, but he forces himself to, worried that a candle flame has caught something and started a fire.

 

What he finds, instead of the smoke he had been expecting, is steam. It's pouring from the doorway of the ensuite bathroom as though someone has just taken an extremely hot shower without turning on the fan.

 

“What the hell?” Kurt says. He sits up woozily as Blaine slides off the bed to go investigate.

 

The small bathroom is filled with steam.

 

“It looks like a sauna in here,” Kurt says, coming up behind Blaine. “Maybe the ghost is worried about your pores.”

 

Blaine huffs a laugh and turns to pull Kurt against him. He notices something on the mirror, streaks of clarity— lines in which he can see their reflections in sharp relief, as opposed to the foggy, dewy blobs they seem in the rest of the mirror. Something has been drawn on the fogged up surface.

 

“It looks like a map.” Kurt walks into the bathroom, head titled to one side as he examines the mirror. “Blaine?”

 

Kurt calls after him as he hurries back into the main room to grab a pen and paper from the bedside table so he can copy it before it fades away with the steam, which is already dissipating at a rapid rate.

 

“Look,” Kurt says as Blaine starts hastily scribbling out the lines and intersections as they appear on the mirror. “It says 'Jack'. That must be Jack Dresden's room.”

 

The drawing is definitely a map. The way the rooms are drawn, it looks like it might even be a map of the wing of the house in which they are staying. And that would mean...

 

“Brittany's room,” Blaine says, finishing the last line as the drawing fades from the mirror as if being sucked away, leaving behind only Blaine and Kurt standing and staring at themselves with wide eyes and pale faces. “The room that says 'Jack' is the room Brittany is staying in. Which means this one...”

 

“...is the one with the star drawn in it. Do you suppose the star is like a little 'you are here' on a map, like the ones at malls?”

 

Blaine shrugs. “Maybe.” He thinks there might be more to it than that.

 

Kurt's eyes widen further and he turns away from his reflection and grasps one of Blaine's hands. “Remember on the first night? Your friend Brittany said he stood over her while she was trying to sleep until she told him to go away. That would make sense if it was his bedroom!”

 

He nods at Kurt, an idea forming in his mind. “I want to find Emma,” he says. “And ask her about this.” He thinks she might have some insight. About the star drawn on his room, and also about the cross drawn on the door across the hall from Jack Dresden's old room. The door that leads to the attic.

 

Emma confirms that they were correct. It is a map of the west wing and the room Brittany is staying in was, in fact, Jack Dresden's bedroom. She hesitates before explaining the star drawn on his room, looking at Blaine and biting on her bottom lip.

 

“It was odd for the Dresdens to put up guests in the family wing of the house, but that summer all information tells us that they did. Evelyn Parker stayed there, in your room, along with her friend Rose Howard, whom the Dresdens were hoping to marry Jack off to.” She hesitates again, a guilty look spread across her face. “I always worry about those who stay in Evelyn Parker's room. They seem to get more frights than any of the other guests.”

 

“I'm fine, Emma,” he assures her. “Really. Other than a few tricks with candles and my razor disappearing, it hasn't been that bad.” He pauses for a moment, then asks her what he is really burning to know. “Why do you think there is a cross drawn on the door to the attic?”

 

Her eyes flit nervously between him and Kurt, and then the nearest doorway. “Probably because he was supposed to be meeting Evelyn up there the night that she died, I would guess. But I don't know for sure. If Jack left you that drawing...” She trails off and shakes her head. When she smiles at them this time, it doesn't reach her eyes. “I don't know, boys. Best not think about it too much. Jan will get that road fixed and you'll be on your way in no time.” She makes an excuse about needing to clean up a mess in another room, and rushes away.

 

Blaine has a need to find out why this map was left on his bathroom mirror. Was it left for him randomly, simply because he had been the one chosen to stay in the room that once housed Evelyn Parker? Or was there another reason? Whoever had left it there had done it while Kurt was in the room, when they could have waited until Blaine was alone. Was Kurt somehow important to this as well? He has an idea. He wants to talk to Jack Dresden, and he figures the best place to find him is probably in his own room.

 

He knocks on Brittany's door several times, but receives no answer.

 

“She's probably with Santana,” Kurt muses, and so they try the door. It isn't locked. The knob turns in Blaine's hand and he pushes the door gently open only to hear Santana yell.

 

“Jesus, you two! If it wasn't obvious to even the blind, deaf and dumb that you're both raging queens, I'd suspect you get your jollies barging in on me and Britts getting our mack on! Beat it!”

 

“I apologize,” Blaine tells her. Kurt is covering his eyes with one hand and trying to pull Blaine away and out the door with the other. But Blaine doesn't want to be removed from the room. He feels as though he has to do this. That Jack Dresden, or whoever it is,  _wants_  him to. But he can't tell Kurt this, can't say it aloud at all. It sounds too nuts.

 

“I need to ask Brittany about the man she saw in this room. Have you seen him since, Britt?”

 

Brittany pops up from under Santana, her hair an absolute rat's nest. “Oh yeah,” he says. “He's always hanging around. Wait a bit longer and he'll turn up again.”

 

“No, how about don't,” Santana growls.

 

Blaine holds out his key. “Look, you guys can take my room, okay? I promise that Kurt and I won't bother you all night. I just really want to talk to your ghost, Brittany.”

 

Brittany smiles and bounces out of the bed, straightening her clothes. She seems pleased that someone finally believes her.

 

Santana is not so happy with the situation. She snatches the key from Blaine's hand, promising to mess up his sheets  _real good_ , then follows Brittany outside and across the hall.

 

“You're okay with this, right?” Blaine asks, turning to Kurt before shutting the door behind the girls.

 

Kurt nods and hastily pulls up the blankets on the bed. “God knows what they've done on those sheets,” he says with a grimace. He leaps up onto the messily made bed and pats the mattress next to him.

 

Blaine joins him, looking around at the dim room. There is only one candle burning under the window.

 

“And now we wait,” Kurt says.

 

“And now we wait,” Blaine agrees.

 

They grow bored after an hour.

 

“What are you doing?” Kurt asks with a giggle. “Why are you flailing your hands around like a crazy person?”

 

“They're shadow puppets!” Blaine tries to sound offended, but the farce doesn't hold up when he begins to laugh, dismantling his shadow puppet butterfly. “Didn't you ever make shadow puppets as a kid?”

 

Kurt shakes his head. “I'm an only child and my mom died when I was eight. My dad isn't really a shadow puppet kind of a guy. He taught me how to change the oil and rotate tires instead.”

 

“At least those are useful skills. My shadow puppets can't even charm cute boys,” Blaine says with a put upon sigh. Kurt laughs again. “I used to make shadow puppets with my older brother, but he mostly spent the time telling me how shoddy my attempts were and taking over with his  _superior_  ones.”

 

“Aww, poor baby!” Kurt pouts out his bottom lip, leaning in to give Blaine a kiss. “You know,” he says when he leans back, “we  _could_ continue what we started outside. Because I don't think Jack is coming to see us anytime soon.”

 

“Is that right?” Blaine is smiling when he stills Kurt's nodding head with his hands and presses their mouths together.

 

It doesn't take long to get back to where they'd been outside in the mud and rain. Kurt is making little hums of pleasure as Blaine kisses over his throat and runs a hand along his waist. He slips it up under his shirt, caressing his stomach, fingers running through the soft hair. Kurt moans and pulls Blaine's face back up, reattaching their lips.

 

Blaine's hand wants to wander downwards to where he can see the hard bulge in Kurt's jeans, but he's not sure if that would be moving too fast and the last thing he wants is to scare Kurt off. Kurt soon makes his decision for him, bucking his hips when Blaine's fingertips dip beneath the waistband of his jeans, and so he slides his hand down and squeezes Kurt's cock through the fabric.

 

“Oh God,” Kurt gasps, and bucks his hips again. “I have not known you long enough to be doing this.”

 

Blaine pulls back immediately. “Do you want to stop?”

 

Kurt's eyes are heavy lidded. He watches Blaine for a second, licking his bottom lip. “Hell no,” he finally replies, then attaches his mouth to the pulse point on Blaine's neck and rolls over on top of him.

 

Blaine lets out a surprised laugh which cuts off abruptly when Kurt thrusts against him, their cocks sliding together. But jeans are so restrictive. He wishes they would just disappear.

 

He runs his hands along Kurt's back and over his ass, squeezing the muscular flesh and pushing down for more friction. Kurt moans again and Blaine lets his legs fall open, wrapping them around Kurt's hips and crossing them at the ankles. Kurt begins to thrust more quickly, his breath harsh in Blaine's ear. Blaine feels light and happy. He can hear the wind pick up, the rain pounding hard against the windows, and his mind is blank of everything but the pleasure in his body and the fact that he's very close to coming in his pants like a teenager.

 

Somewhere in the house a clock begins to strike the hour. Blaine doesn't count the tolls, but there are a lot of them. “Midnight,” says Kurt's rough voice in his ear, and the he sucks on the lobe and Blaine feels orgasm approaching white and hot.

 

The wind blows more fiercely, making the windows rattle in their panes. “Kurt,  _Kurt_ ,” Blaine gasps, and there is a piercing crash and all he can feel is air and tiny specks of cold dotting all over the parts of his body that are not covered by Kurt's.

 

“The window, the window,” Kurt is saying. He's pulling away and all Blaine wants is to drag him back.

 

But he's right. The centre window has broken inwards, the curtains standing out straight as the wind thrashes them around. They are being pelted with stinging raindrops and tiny shards of glass. The last thing Blaine sees is the way they sparkle and shine against the bedding, and then the lone candle is snuffed out by the wind and he sees nothing else.

 

Kurt tugs him up off the bed as it begins to rattle and slide minutely across the floor. Along the far wall, the dresser is banging and the end table is scraping across the floor towards the door. There is no reason for it to be moving in that direction; the wind is certainly not pushing it that way. The only reason Blaine can think of is that someone is trying to trap them inside the room.

 

He jumps up from the bed, pulling Kurt with him and rushes for the door just as the large, heavy wood dresser makes a break from the wall and begins to follow the end table towards it. They hurry to reach it first, Blaine's hand bringing up against the end table as they go. It feels hot to the touch and he gives it a shove, sending it skittering back. It hits the corner of the bed and the last thing he hears is the wood splintering and then they are out in the hallway, Blaine forcing the door shut behind them.

 

Things in the hall are not much better. As Kurt and Blaine try to catch their breath, the wind outside bangs against the windows at the top of the stairs and the settees and tables begin to slide forward, the chandeliers shaking violently in the ceiling above them. Blaine feels himself being hauled out from beneath one just as a section of it breaks off and smashes on the floor. Kurt grabs Blaine by the hand and they try to run, but there is an armoire that Blaine has never seen before blocking the way to his room. The chandelier at the head of the grand staircase is shuddering and looks about to fall. They turn and turn again, in a perfect circle, trying to decide what to do.

 

That's when Blaine sees the door to the attic. Feeling as though they are being chased, he leads Kurt in that direction, hoping the door is not locked. They need somewhere to hide until the others come to help them. As long as the others aren't in similar situations in their own rooms.

 

The door yields when Blaine gives it one forceful shove, and they stumble into the musky darkness, Blaine's knees bringing up against a low stair. They huddle into the narrow space and walk up a few steps so that they are able to close the door behind them.

 

It's quiet. Blaine takes several deep breaths, hearing Kurt do the same beside him. As they slowly climb the remaining steps, the candles in a hanging chandelier light themselves, followed by several ancient wall sconces.

 

Blaine's eyes adjust to the sudden light and he glances over at Kurt's terrified face. He looks pale and shaky. Blaine moves in closer and takes his hand.

 

“Maybe we should get out of here,” Kurt whispers. “The candles. We're not alone.”

 

Blaine nods and backs down the stairs, but when they reach the door, it's stuck shut. The knob turns over and over in his hand and he yanks and yanks, but the door will not budge.

 

He shares another look with Kurt and together they climb the stairs again. Someone went through a lot of trouble to get them up here. Blaine is only hoping their reasons are not malicious.  _May or may not be malevolent_ , he hears Brittany say. He sincerely hopes it is the latter.

 

As they reach the top of the narrow staircase and enter the first and largest of the attic rooms, Blaine can hear a low scraping sound like rock on rock. Kurt gasps next to him and drops his hand. Blaine fumbles, trying to grab it back, but Kurt is walking away from him. He follows, watching as Kurt kneels down, coming up with a box.

 

“Blaine,” he says. “Look at this!”

 

They set it down on the dusty floor and gently pry it open. It's full to the brim with papers. As they shuffle through, Blaine sees stacks of letters tied together with faded ribbons, photographs and slips of paper so old that they are nearly worn clean.

 

“Emma mentioned these to Artie,” Blaine whispers to Kurt. “She said notes and pictures and letters were left in her room one by one. And that he wouldn't take them away until she had read them.”

 

Blaine takes a stack of the letters and settles beneath one of the wall sconces where he finds the best light. Kurt sits in the middle of the room and looks through the old black and white and sepia toned photographs.

 

“She was so beautiful,” is the last thing Blaine hears Kurt say, and then he's lost in the world of Jack and Evelyn.

 

 

_Dearest Darling Evelyn,_

 

_I hope my letter finds you well. I have been receiving all of the New York papers hoping to catch a glimpse of you in the entertainment section. I grow excited when I see even just your name mentioned in a review or an article about a party. It seems as though the entire city is as enamoured with you as I am._

 

_But how I miss you! I long to see you smile and hear the delicate lilt of your laughter. Nothing— not my phonograph nor the live bands that are hired by my youngest sister to entertain us— can make such beautiful music as you._

 

_Rose has written to say she will come for the summer, as she has been invited by my parents via hers. She says she will bring you along as her most special of friends so that we might meet and see each other for many weeks. I hope you are able to come, my dear. It is killing me not to see you. I was hoping to take the train into the city again next month, but my mother's poor health is keeping me here at present. She seems to use this excuse whenever she senses I am pulling away from her. Soon I will no longer fall into these traps she sets. I feel so smothered by them all._

 

_Please consider coming to the Hollows for the summer with Rose. My sister Marion is planning parties like you won't believe and it will be ever so fun. We can take walks through the gardens and the woods and I will have the cook make all of your favourites, for I am the cook's favourite and have some pull in that area. Tell me what you wish for and I will do everything in my power to give it to you._

 

_Much love,_

 

_Jack_

 

 

He sees movement and looks up from the papers. Kurt is standing and walking away, out of the room. Blaine wouldn't be startled by this in and of itself, but something seems off to him. For one thing, though he hasn't known Kurt for more than a few days, he still knows enough about him to realize that he would never treat old photographs of someone he admires in the way he is now doing. They are trailing behind him as he walks, drifting from his grasp in twos and threes and fluttering to the dirty floor.

 

“Kurt?”

 

Blaine's second warning is the fact that Kurt does not answer him, though he calls out his name several times.

 

He's on his feet and following close behind in a heartbeat and reaches Kurt just as he's opening another door in the adjacent room. As he sees Kurt unlatch the old lock and turn the handle, it strikes Blaine suddenly that he knows exactly where this door will lead and he has never been more certain of anything in his life as he is of the fact that he does not want to go there. He takes Kurt gently by the shoulders and says his name again, but he is shrugged off.

 

Behind the door he can feel the night air and see the vague, shadowy shape of another staircase. “Kurt, we can't go up there,” he says. He reaches out to take Kurt by the shoulders again, his grip firm this time, but he is thrown backwards into the wall. He sucks in a breath and feels for the solidity of the floor to help right him once more. By the time he's back on his feet, Kurt has disappeared from view.

 

“Kurt! Come back!” The wind swallows his plea as he follows Kurt out onto the roof.

 

They are on the widow's walk. Blaine can make out Kurt's form a few feet in front of him amidst the crumbling stone and dark sheets of roofing. The rain has quieted to a drizzle, but it stings as it hits Blaine in the face all the same. He inches slowly in Kurt's direction. Kurt looks as though he is in a daze, meandering to the far corner of the widow's walk seemingly without purpose. Blaine doesn't want to startle him; the railing is old and likely not sturdy.

 

“It wasn't an accident,” he hears Kurt say, his voice an eerie monotone. “They broke the railing.”

 

Just as the words leave Kurt's lips there is a tremendous flash of lightning, illuminating the scene in front of him. The railing is indeed broken; it lays snapped and rusted only feet in front of Kurt, the spires sticking up worryingly all around. Perfect to fall on. Perfect for conducting the lightning that is once again lighting up the night sky above.

 

“Kurt, come on now,” Blaine is saying. “It's not safe. We have to get inside.”

 

He inches minutely forward, cursing under his breath that he can't think of a better plan.

 

“She tripped and fell and died. They did it on purpose. They overheard us talking, knew I would leave with her. They couldn't have that. If she fell then I couldn't leave. So they had the maid stall me and I was late and she fell and fell and screamed.”

 

“Kurt.” Blaine is shaking now, his heart pounding so loudly that he can hear it, the sound keeping time with the steps he takes towards Kurt. “What are— Kurt, don't go any further.”

 

The lightning flashes again, a clap of thunder following close behind.  _The lightning's close. Are you all morons?_  Puck's voice chastises in his head. He needs to get Kurt away from the edge so he can try to carry him back inside.

 

“It wasn't an accident,” Kurt says again. “Wasn't an accident.”

 

Blaine is in reaching distance now. He takes a deep breath, arms outstretched, but Kurt lunges forward suddenly, away from his grasping hands. He's so close to the edge now.

 

“No, Kurt, don't go that way,” Blaine pleads. “ _Please_.” His voice is thick with unshed tears. There is another flash of lightning, bringing into stark relief the grinning face of a gargoyle who sits high on the ledge of a nearby chimney.

 

The thunder rumbles through the sky and Blaine can feel it deep within his bones. He sucks air in, tasting earth and ozone, then springs forward, grabbing Kurt around the middle and tackling him to the roof. Kurt doesn't try to fight him off as he had been expecting, just lays there with blank eyes staring skyward, droplets of rain beading on his waxy skin and in his eyelashes. “It wasn't an accident,” spilling over and over from his lips.

 

The power flickers to life as Blaine is leading a still groggy Kurt out of the attic door. The electric lights are blazing all around them. Every bit of furniture is still in its proper place and the chandeliers are all intact and hanging from the ceiling as they should be. The hallway is silent and serene as though nothing ever happened.

 

They go to Kurt's room. Kurt is shaking violently and has still not said a word since waking from his stupor. Blaine is desperate to get him warm and safe. After a hot shower and a change of clothes, they fall asleep wrapped up together under a mound of blankets.

 

When Blaine wakes in the morning, Kurt is watching him. He checks Kurt's eyes, but they are clear; he seems alert.

 

“What happened?” Kurt whispers. His lips are quivering, so Blaine leans in to quiet them with a gentle kiss.

 

“I'm not even sure,” he answers. “I think Jack—”

 

Kurt's long, pale fingers shoot out from under the covers and rest against Blaine's lips. He is shaking his head slowly back and forth. “Don't say his name.”

 

Blaine nods and Kurt retracts his fingers, his eyes downcast. “I can't remember, but please don't say his name,” he repeats in a whisper.

 

# #

 

Kurt is quiet and seems to be trying to piece things together as they walk down the hall to Brittany's room. The door stands ajar and there is activity inside— Brittany and Santana doing their makeup in the large oval mirror.

 

“But the window—” Kurt stops himself and looks to Blaine, who shrugs infinitesimally and says good morning to the girls.

 

Kurt wanders over to the window, garnering strange looks from Santana. He seems lost, his fingers running over the fabric of the curtains as he watches outside. Blaine waits for Santana's remarks, his ire already prickling at the back of his neck and readying his tongue to retort, but after a second she furrows her brow and looks back at her reflection, uncapping a tube of lipstick.

 

Blaine joins Kurt by the window. Kurt gives Blaine a covert look, then lifts the curtain for him to see— imbedded all over the deep wine fabric are fine shards of glass, shimmering in the rays of the sun.

 

# # #

 

“We have Kurt Hummel, fellow guest here at Dresden Hollows on what was meant to be a three day stay, but has turned into a much longer one.” Kurt looks away from Artie and over to where Blaine sits in the corner. He offers him a small smile of encouragement and Kurt turns his attention back on Artie.

 

“And what has your experience been like, Kurt? What encounters have you had with the great beyond?”

 

“I told you I don't remember what happened out there on the roof, Artie,” he says. His voice is strong and he straightens in his seat. Blaine feels a sense of relief flood him. Kurt has been quiet and standoffish over the past few days, ever since the incident on the roof, as they've taken to calling it. As the rain stopped and the road was mended, they welcomed back Jan and finally got to meet Liz, as well as the Forresters, the tardy couple who missed all of the action, but Kurt had not been himself. He sat next to Blaine and ate and drank and listened to the others' stories, never once offering up any of his own.

 

“I don't remember any of what Blaine told me happened up there. Nothing after we got into the attic. But there is—” He stops and shakes his head, as though shaking the thought away.

 

“There is what?” Artie pushes.

 

Kurt stares down at his hands for a long, silent moment, then looks back up, directly into Artie's camera. “There's a vision I keep having. Maybe it's a dream, maybe a memory, I don't know. In it I— I can hear her; she's screaming. She screams and he runs and runs. To the top of the stairs, to the roof. But she's already broken. She's already on the ground. There is a light shining on her from a window down below and he—  _I_ can see her body, the blood pooling around her. He collapses on the widow's walk and blacks out, and then it all happens again. Over and over and over and over. That's all he ever sees.”

 

Kurt stops, his chin trembling and his eyes wet. “And what would any of us do if that was our fate?” he says.

 

# # #

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Six.**

 

The house is a flurry of activity. There are people rushing about with suitcases and phone chargers and picking up packed lunches, care of Jan and Liz. Blaine grabs another of Kurt's suitcases and lugs it out to the SUV. Puck says he feels terrible that he's unable to do it, since his ankle is sprained. Instead he sits in the lounge with Rachel, who has been fetching him ice packs and food for the past few days.

 

Kurt pops up out of the front seat when Blaine rounds the corner, a wide smile on his face. “I've got our phones and food all in reaching distance,” he informs Blaine, taking a bite of a large, golden apple. “Once we get Artie we'll be all ready to get on the road.”

 

As though summoned, Brittany comes out of the house with Artie in her arms and plops him in the backseat, Santana following after her with his chair.

 

“Are you sure you don't want shotgun?' Kurt asks, but Artie shakes his head.

 

“No, man, I got a lot of sleep to be catching up on. I'm cool in the back.” And he shuffles around and lays himself out across the seat.

 

Brittany takes a pillow from the floor and slides it under his head, then leans down to land a peck on his forehead. “You gonna be okay without me?”

 

Artie opens his eyes to look up at her where her face hangs upside down above him. “Yeah, Britts. You go have fun with your new girls.”

 

She grins down at him, the front of her shirt wriggling as her teacup chihuahua makes a break for freedom and winds up on Artie's face. “Oops,” she says with a giggle, stuffing the dog back inside.

 

Artie gives Blaine a thumbs up after Brittany runs off and Blaine shuts the door, allowing Artie to begin his nap. Kurt and Blaine lean against the side of the vehicle, watching as the girls finish organizing their car, Brittany's tiny dog running around their feet and yipping.

 

The drive to Dresden Hollows seems like only yesterday to Blaine, and yet it feels like eons ago in the same instance. He's exhausted all the way down to his bones, but he's still looking forward to the trip ahead of him, and so much time with Kurt.

 

Blaine watches Kurt's face as he laughs at the girls, Santana cursing the dog and threatening to heave it out the window on the way home. His eyes are vibrant again, his face no longer drawn. He seems to have healed quickly from his ordeal.

 

“Will you be my Daphne?” Blaine blurts out, realizing how ridiculous he sounds after the fact. Kurt raises one eyebrow, a smile playing about his lips. “Um... on the way up here I was thinking about how we were like characters from  _Scooby Doo_ , and I must be Fred since I was the driver, but I didn't have a Daphne. So—”

 

“Thus was born your very odd question,” Kurt finishes for him with a laugh. “Why of course I'll be your Daphne. I may not be a redhead, but I do believe I have the feistiness of one.”

 

“That you do,” Blaine agrees with a grin. Kurt leans down and gives him a quick kiss.

 

“Get a room,” Santana hollers over, just as Jan and Liz exit the house along with Rachel, Puck bringing up the rear, hobbling along on his crutches.

 

Jan and Liz say goodbye to the girls first, then make their way over. Liz peeks inside to say goodbye to Artie while Jan hugs Kurt, having a hastily whispered conversation with him next to the passenger side door. Kurt's eyes look moist when she gives him a pat on the back and pulls away. Blaine wants to go to him immediately, but she is in front of him now, smiling and opening her arms for a hug.

 

“It was lovely to know you, Blaine,” she says. “And thank you for helping take care of things while I was unable to.”

 

“Of course,” Blaine tells her. “It was the least I could do.”

 

“And look after that one,” she adds, her watchful gaze fixed on Kurt, who is chatting with Santana while trying to fend off the dog. “He seems a bit shaken still.”

 

Blaine nods and gives her another fleeting hug. “Definitely.”

 

As she's walking away, he thinks about something that has been niggling at the back of his mind since even before leaving the city. “Jan?”

 

She turns with an eyebrow raised in question.

 

“How did Brittany manage to get us reservations on such short notice? Did someone cancel or—”

 

Jan is shaking her head, a mysterious little smile on her face. “She called and made reservations months ago,” she says, then turns and follows her wife and nephew to the house.

 

Blaine's eyes find Brittany. She's chasing the dog around the car; it makes three turns before she finally manages to catch it.  _How did she know?_ he wonders. Had it been a coincidence, or had she planted the idea in Artie's head about the haunted documentary just so they would make the trip with her? Or maybe she really does have the power of foresight and knew what would happen and who they would meet and—  _Nah._  “Come on, Scooby Doo,” she says, dropping the dog down the front of her shirt and climbing into the backseat of the car.

 

Blaine turns away to find Kurt smirking at him. “That name was yours, wasn't it?”

 

“It might have been.”

 

Kurt giggles and motions to the SUV with his head. “All aboard the Mystery Machine?”

 

Blaine laughs heartily and opens the passenger side door for him, waving him inside.

 

“When we get back to New York, will you go on a date with me?” Kurt asks, snapping on his seatbelt.

 

“I would be honoured,” Blaine says with a smile. He checks his blind spots, adjusting the mirrors, and waits for the girls to pull away in front of them.

 

“I'll cook for you and maybe we can watch a movie—”

 

“Great idea. I can bring over  _The Others_ ,  _The Shining_ ,  _Paranormal Activity_...”

 

“Very funny, Mr. Anderson. But I was thinking maybe something romantic as opposed to traumatic.”

 

“I don't know,” Blaine argues, starting the engine and following at a slow pace behind the girls. “You seemed to kinda like me when there were ghosts.”

 

“I'm pretty sure I'll like you just as well when I'm not terrified outta my wits. But if things get boring, we can always take a nighttime tour through all of the worst neighbourhoods in New York. I'll make a list.”

 

Blaine grins over at Kurt and flips down his sun visor. Now that the rain has stopped, the sun has decided to come back with a vengeance.

 

As they're driving away from Dresden Hollows and Blaine's cell service is reinstated, his phone begins pinging over and over as he receives dozens of text and missed call alerts. He lifts his phone into his eyeline and sees that they are almost all from Cooper.

 

The last one reads:  _Geez, Blainey, are you avoiding me or something?_

 

Blaine laughs, Kurt giving him an odd look.

 

_No Coop. I've had no cell service. Honestly. It's a long story. I'll call you when I get home._

 

And then Blaine turns off his phone. Artie is already snoring away in the backseat, and he and Kurt have hours to get to know each other better without fear of ghostly interference.

 

# # #

 

“This is the account of my roommate and best bro, Blaine Devon Anderson.” Artie sits behind the camera in their living room, the late evening sun shining softly through the window at his back. Blaine shifts in his seat. Even so far from Dresden Hollows, he is not completely comfortable talking about all that happened.

 

But Artie soon has him talking, recounting every odd thing that occurred during their stay, every strange piece of the puzzle. When he gets to the attic incident, he pauses. He knows he has Kurt's permission to tell the story as he remembers it, but something still feels off. Something feels wrong.

 

“He told us what really happened to her, to Evelyn up on the roof that night. We can't do anything about it now, and the people responsible are long gone, but maybe it was the telling that was important. Maybe now that he's told his story, passed on that terrible knowledge to another soul, he can finally rest in peace. Maybe he can go and find the girl he loved and rest in peace.”

 

# # #

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Epilogue. Two Years Later.**

 

Kurt is late. Blaine takes another look at his wristwatch and sips his coffee, studying the old brick building he's been waiting in front of for the past fifteen minutes. The online photos of the apartment inside had been amazing. He's only hoping the place lives up to his and Kurt's expectations.

 

It feels as though he and Kurt have gone to look at a hundred apartments all over the city over the last few weeks. He's tired, but mostly just anxious to move things along. He wants to be living with Kurt yesterday.

 

The realtor arrives just as Blaine is finishing off his coffee, and Kurt rounds the corner while Blaine is greeting her. “Work,” he mouths at Blaine with a roll of his eyes, and reaches out a hand, fingers fluttering in the air, asking wordlessly for Blaine to clasp them. He does of course, with pleasure, and they follow the realtor into the building.

 

“This is an old building,” she's saying, which they already know. They had researched it in a fit of excitement after finding the listing two days before. “Built just after the First World War. It's been renovated, keeping with the aesthetic of its time. It's very lovely and spacious, but there may be some slight issues that you would not come across in a newer building.”

 

Blaine sees Kurt nod along with the realtor and smiles. They will deal with draughtiness and clunky radiators and sketchy air conditioning in exchange for high ceilings and cathedral windows and gently restored, original woodworking and undeniable charm.

 

Which, as the realtor unlocks the door and motions them inside, Blaine sees that the place has in abundance.

 

Kurt gasps next to him and Blaine can't hold in his grin. Kurt loves beautiful things, and Blaine loves Kurt. Which, he supposes, means that he also loves beautiful things.

 

The kitchen is a little small, but the cabinets are a lovely dark wood and the appliances have been upgraded. The tininess of the kitchen is soon forgotten, for the living area more than makes up for it.

 

The floor drops down one step, the room sunken, making the ceilings that much higher. Blaine estimates that they've got to be at least ten feet high. There is so much light in the room, the windows large and ornate, the many delicate panes of glass glimmering with the late afternoon sun and shining on the intricate mouldings and polished wood floor.

 

Blaine is desperate to get a look at the view from those gorgeous windows, but he holds in his excitement and follows Kurt and the realtor down the short hallway to look at the other rooms.

 

The bathroom is easily the least interesting room in the apartment. It's small and hasn't been as recently renovated, but Blaine is pleased to see the old fashioned claw-footed bathtub with a shower attachment and curtain enclosure.

 

_We can always change the hardware on the vanity to spruce it up_ , Blaine thinks, just as Kurt turns and whispers the very same thing in his ear.

 

The second bedroom is tiny, but the perfect size for a desk for their computers and table for Kurt's sewing machine. The master bedroom is a fair size and both Blaine and Kurt are pleased to find that it has a decently sized closet. The floor and mouldings and doors are all restored originals, and even the colour palette harkens back to the post-war era. All in all, the space is simply lovely.

 

They go back out to the living area and discuss the price with the realtor. It's a little bit more than they wanted to pay every month, but they will cut corners if they need to in order to live here. The realtor tells them she can negotiate the price with the super a little bit and heads off in search of her, leaving Blaine and Kurt alone.

 

Kurt is opening all of the kitchen cabinets for a peek inside and Blaine grabs him by both hands and pulls him away to get a look at the view from the living room windows.

 

He watches as Kurt starts framing things with his hands, the way Artie does when he's envisioning a perfect shot for a film. “Can't you just see it, honey?” Kurt asks. “How it will look with our furniture and accoutrements? We can have dinner parties and, oh, maybe even host Thanksgiving this year!” He bounces a little and his enthusiasm is catching, because Blaine finds himself with quite the bounce in his step when he takes the last few over to the windows.

 

It isn't a waterfront view or anything like that, but after spending the past four years staring out into a dirty alleyway, it looks like the most perfect heaven to Blaine. He and Kurt  _ooh_  and  _ahh_ , pointing out landmarks they recognize and the birds that are nesting in the eaves of the building opposite. They startle when they hear a throat clearing behind them.

 

There is a very small man standing there looking cross, and Blaine's first instinct is to pull his hand away from Kurt's. He has to force himself to keep it there, secure in Kurt's hold. This man can't do anything to them. He probably doesn't even want to. It's so ingrained in Blaine to be selective with his signs of affection when in public spaces that it takes a lot to overpower his instinct.

 

“Are you thinking about taking this unit?” the man asks, tapping one foot. Blaine had expected to find his voice high pitched, for he is extremely small and elfin, but it comes out in a deep boom and he feels his eyes widen and Kurt stiffen in surprise next to him.

 

“Yes we are,” Kurt answers. “We're quite taken with the place.”

 

The man nods almost mournfully, the cross look on his face all but disappearing. “Of course you are,” he says. “Of course.” He shakes his head once and turns as if he's about to leave, but he only faces in the direction of the hallway and stands silently with his hands on his hips for a few seconds. Then he says, “I've lived in this building since nineteen eighty-three.”

 

Blaine attempts the smooth the confusion from his expression and nods at the man, trying to convey interest rather than the bewilderment he actually feels.

 

“I know this unit is very nice. I've been tempted to move over here myself a few of the many, many times it has been vacant over the years. But I couldn't make myself.”

 

“Too attached to your own place?” Kurt ventures to guess after the man has gone silent once more.

 

The man turns his beady-eyed stare on Kurt and shakes his head. “Not at all. Just couldn't justify putting up with a damn poltergeist for more space and a nicer view,” he says.

 

“Poltergeist?” Kurt's voice is high and shaky.

 

“Oh yes. Moves the dishes. Rattles the windows. Turns on your music. Never tries to hurt no one, though. She's been over here for decades. Wife of a navy serviceman who died off the coast of Japan during the Second World War.”

 

Blaine grips Kurt's shaking hand more tightly and tries to think rationally. Perhaps this man has decided after all these years that he does want the space and the view and is trying to scare them off. “The realtor never said anything about a ghost.”

 

The man scoffs. “Of course not! You think someone trying to let the place is gonna tell the people wanting to let it that it's haunted? They'll tell you whatever they have to to make you take the place and then they take their commission and go back to their own homes. Poltergeist free, I'm sure.”

 

“But, um...” Kurt speaks up. Blaine can feel him standing straighter next to him. “I've been researching this building and I didn't come across anything about a haunting.”

 

“Not on the official books of course. But you can search up the stories of Friendly Margaret. You'll find them sure enough.”

 

Blaine looks over at Kurt when he feels eyes on him. He looks so disappointed that it makes Blaine want to kiss him until he feels better. He'd been waiting, Blaine realizes, waiting for there to be something wrong with the place. It was too perfect, exactly what they both wanted for their first home together.

 

“Like I said,” the man continues, “she won't hurt you or anything. They call her Friendly Margaret because she's not malevolent. I've heard tell of her finding things for you that you've lost and everything. Just wanted to give you forewarning in case the spooky stuff gives you a bad fright.”

 

Blaine nods at the man. “Well, thank you for the information Mr....”

 

“Frank,” he says. “Just Frank. I'm across the hall if you decide to take the place. Sometimes I play the ole squeezebox, but if I get too noisy, just come rap on my door and I'll knock it off.”

 

They nod their thanks again and watch as Frank walks across the floor and out the door, letting it fall closed with a bang behind him.

 

Blaine hears Kurt let out one long breath next to him and he turns so they are face to face. He can't quite read Kurt's look. It's no longer one of disappointment, but something else. Resignation maybe? Or acceptance?

 

Kurt reaches out and takes both of Blaine's hands in his and plays with his fingers, swinging their clasped hands loosely through the air between them.

 

He's glancing back and forth between Blaine's face and the satchel which he's still got slung across his body. Inside is the rental agreement and all of the papers that the realtor had emailed over to them the day before. They had already filled them out, sure that this place was it. The one. But was it still?

 

Kurt heaves a sigh and shrugs his shoulders, dropping one of Blaine's hands and cupping his newly freed one around his mouth. “Are you there, Friendly Margaret?” he bellows into the empty space around them. “And how do you feel about roommates?”

 

Blaine chuckles and leans forward to land a peck on Kurt's cheek. “High ceilings, period mouldings, perfectly restored hardwood, and a poltergeist?” he asks.

 

Kurt sighs again, but there is an edge of humour to the sound. “Maybe she's fun at parties,” he says with a shrug, and gives Blaine a tug in the direction of the hall. “Now, we definitely need to sort out the closet situation before moving in. That's high on the priority list. We do not want to be arguing about sides of the closet on moving day.”

 

“Of course,” Blaine agrees with mock solemnity and follows Kurt to the master bedroom.

 

He thinks he sees something move out of the corner of his eye as they pass the smaller of the bedrooms, but he ignores it. As long as Friendly Margaret keeps to her own room, he thinks they'll be okay.

 

Kurt glances over at Blaine and shakes his head. “I didn't see it either,” he says.

 

 


End file.
